He Sells Luxury Cars for a Living! | Nick Dossa Digital Social Hour #109

It's the most expensive car, like the bottom.

The most expensive car I've sold was uh La Ferrari Apperpe.

Wow.

How much?

Uh between

six and a half and seven and a half.

I'll give you that range.

What do you think about the Ferrari truck?

I think it's cool.

It's cool.

Yeah, I saw it.

It's pretty cool.

I have one coming.

Oh, you do?

Yeah, I'll have one coming.

Yeah, because they were saying that they were sold out.

If you got the right contact, you can buy it.

I've had one customer buy 40-something cars from me.

For real?

They spent over $30 million with me.

One day.

Yeah, that's pretty good.

And that's not normal.

Welcome to the Digital Social Hour.

I'm your host, Sean Kelly, here with my co-host, Wayne Lewis.

What up, what up?

And our guest today, Nick Dosa.

What's happening?

How's it going, man?

Good, good.

Just

watched game three of the Vegas Knights.

You're the official sponsor.

Yeah, We're the luxury car sponsor, so yeah, it's kind of fun and rooting for them.

Yeah, lost yesterday, but it's okay.

So, what'd you drive here today?

Uh, Cullen and Colin.

Oh, okay,

those are expensive, right?

Yeah, about three, four hundred, right?

Jeez, five for a black badge, yeah, yeah, wow, depending on which one half a mill on a car, yeah, that's insane, man.

That's normal these days.

What can you get?

What can you get for a hundred thousand today?

A Tesla, yeah, you buy a Camry for $65,000

are $65,000.

Imagine that, right?

For a fully loaded Camry.

It's, you know, probably get a charger.

Charger, yeah?

Charger?

Yeah.

$100,000.

Yeah.

What's like your average order value when you sell a vehicle, like $100K?

Or Sweet Spots, like $100,000, $150,000.

Jeez, that's the highest AOV I've ever heard.

Like, that's six figures, bro.

Easy.

Well, you mean on actual, like, what the average car we sell price-wise is?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's insane.

I mean,

I mean, it's a, when it comes to exotics,

gotta to have a bankroll.

You got to have two bank rows.

You got to have a bankroll to get it, and then a bank row to fix it.

Yeah, true.

You got to have two separate bank accounts for one car.

Why do they break down a lot?

No, well, no, it's not that they break down a lot.

When it's time to get them fixed, it costs.

Doesn't ensure any plates and stuff that you've got to take off to even see the engine.

Especially on the Rolls-Royce.

That's way of a full-service department, you know what I mean?

So we take care of it.

We have extended warranties we have also.

But a lot of stuff's under warranties.

So I mean, when you buy an exotic, you kind of know what you're getting into.

Yeah,

they're not needs or their wants.

Yeah, absolutely.

But they can, their assets.

I feel like they're assets.

100%.

During COVID, they were even crazier assets.

I mean, you could buy a car brand new and take it off and put it online and sell it for 50 grand more.

Not only that,

it raises your worth.

Your network is better.

People you start to meet, the women you date, obviously depending on what your motive is, but it definitely helps.

The edification that comes with it, I mean,

it's a different kind of generation now, right?

We look at things on Instagram and social media platforms that are like, oh, you know, hey, this guy drives a McLaren.

This guy drives a Lamborghini.

Oh, cool.

I want to talk to him.

They don't know the guy that's driving the Tesla has the same amount of bankroll or if not more.

It's perception.

That's the crazy thing.

But yeah, these are definitely marketing tools.

Absolutely.

It gets the attention.

Absolutely.

Now, how did you get started with this?

Because obviously, this type of industry, you need a lot of connections and capital.

Yeah, so I started back in Canada.

I was born and raised out there, and I was going to school, and I was going to school for medical and stuff like that, as any Indian

kid would go through, right?

So you parent, hey, you got a doctorate.

So

he was going through school and doing all that.

And I was like, I was buying and selling cars in class, and I was making more money than my professor.

How can I listen to this guy tell me, this is what you're going to, you're going to go to school, you're going to go out of school, you're going to make 150 000 a year and you know i'm making three four thousand a car and i'm selling 10 cars a month while i'm sitting in class and doing a full course wow how's that work so i couldn't justify it you know so i talked to my mom and was like hey listen i gotta i gotta do something different she's like well you gotta finish your school so i did that and then started the car business um cliff notes version did it in canada and then moved to vegas to be closer to family so yeah big money person wait so how are you flipping them in class were you just drop shipping them no back then i mean think about it like you couldn't do that.

You had a cell phone and you had the auto trader book.

We didn't even have online kind of presents like we do now.

Oh, you were selling out the auto trader book?

Yeah, man.

You'd buy it, you clean it up, you'd take a picture, you put it in the auto trader book, and you'd pay extra for the color ad, or you'd pay a lesser price for the black and white ad.

Wow.

And you'd just decide to always buy the color ad.

I just started, man.

Yeah.

That's a different hustle right there.

That's the hustle.

And then you'd have a week, right?

Because it's a week.

Every week it would come out.

So you buy it, you clean it up, get it done fast, put it online.

So next week you're hoping to sell it.

You just wait for your phone to ring.

And now it's just more so like with the internet and social media.

Now you're just selling a lifestyle.

Stella and lifestyle.

Yeah, selling the lifestyle.

That's exactly it.

You have to learn the business.

But I think I'm appreciative that I did it like that because I think I got a better value for the business.

I think I understand the business better because of it.

And I know I watched the internet and transition happen, how everything kind of went online and started.

So for me, it was like, okay, cool.

I was able to see it gradually go.

And why did you stick with buy-sell and not get into car rentals?

Because I hear there's good margins there.

You know what?

There's a lot of guys that do rentals and stuff.

And one of the bigger guys in town, we started at the same time.

I opened the dealership and he opened rental.

And I said, hey, I'm going to do dealership and you do rental.

We stayed in each other's way.

But for me, I'm a liability person.

I'm very calculated on everything I do.

So I just, when I go to sleep at night, I want to sleep really good.

I don't want to have to have that stress because the minute you pass over your car, it doesn't matter if that person's insured or whatever.

Kill someone, it's still going to come back on you.

You got a problem to deal with.

Wow.

It doesn't matter.

It's liability.

It's all liability.

So it's calculated risk.

For me, I just, well, I take the risk if I don't have to.

The reward is not enough.

Yeah.

I actually know someone that that happened to.

One of his rentals got in an accident.

The guy died.

And then he had to sue and he lost a ton of money.

And when you get sued, you're always fighting.

The guy sued him?

The guy.

So there were two guys in the car.

One of them died.

The guy that survived sued him and he had to pay because, and the guy died.

So it's crazy.

Oh, that's crazy.

And you gotta think, like, when you get sued, you're on defense mode, right?

You're not on offense.

So you're like, you're always defending yourself and you didn't even do anything wrong.

Yeah.

So why put yourself through that stress?

It does seem stressful.

A lot of cars get in accidents.

Yeah.

I mean, it's risky in every industry, even with selling cars sometimes.

The guys will go rent cars right now and they'll take it to California, wrap the car, because before you'd have to paint a car, but now you can wrap a car and

create a digital sticker, change the vent, and go sell it to somebody for cash.

Wow.

Yeah, dude.

That's it.

The dude did that.

He sold a Hellcat.

No, what?

It was a rental.

Yeah.

The dudes gave him 50K for it.

That's insane.

He got away.

But what about the license plate?

I mean.

Kick on.

It's the same plate.

How is he selling it?

Well, I mean, people don't know the difference.

You're a for sale sign.

Wow.

He got caught when he went to go register the car because he couldn't register it.

Jeez.

So during COVID, that car spike, I mean, what was your life like?

Because that was crazy.

Oh,

shutting down.

I was having a kid during COVID.

You know, everything was shutting down.

And I'm like getting ready to shut the business down because everybody had to stop, right?

We had to shut it down as in, like, we were going to stop everything and stop business until everything reopened.

Most people couldn't do that.

They were losing their businesses.

We were able to just close it off and take some time off, which was kind of nice in a way.

I had a baby during that time.

And then all of a sudden they said, okay, well, cars are essential business.

Perfect.

Let's open up.

And we we were first to market again, and I had a bunch of inventory, so prices had already gone up.

But during right when COVID was hitting, I was buying stuff left, right, and center.

People were panicking.

I'll say this: Okay, cool, give me 100,000.

I'll take it.

Cars were 150, I don't care, I want 100, give it to me.

Wow, you know, it was just so you took advantage of it.

You have to.

What's the most expensive car that you got for the low?

Equity in here.

I need that.

Okay, so

if you during COVID, I'll I'll give you that one.

I bought a Bentley for

$150,000.

It was a 2020 Bentley GT first edition W12 coupe.

The value on it was $380,000.

Yeah, brand new, about $340,000.

And the guy had 1,000 miles on it.

Bought it for $160,000, I think-ish.

Outright?

Like, it was yours.

Title.

Bought it for $160,000 and turned around and flipped it for $240,000.

Overnight?

AG's overnight.

That's a full-time salary.

Yeah, I mean,

But those deals don't happen.

I mean, you gotta, you know, it just, it was time and place.

Mason got a brand new car.

And where's

nothing?

Where's the shit?

Yeah.

But the guy that needed to sell it, for him, that money was so important because he was preparing for the worst.

Every he was.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So why?

We don't need those cars and stuff like that.

Anybody that's smart with business would say, hey, listen, I'll take the cash.

Cash is king.

Let me sit on the cash pile.

And then when the deals come, I'll rip.

What's it like at car auctions?

Do you have a strategy going into those?

I used to do a lot of auctions.

I don't do as much anymore.

It's just not

our car culture in a sense.

We do get some fillers here and there from other locations,

the cheaper stuff.

But otherwise, car auctions, there's a reason the car's at the auction.

One.

And sometimes dealers just sell in there because they need liquid cash flow to keep the ball rolling.

So there is some deals, but you've got to always check the cars out.

You got to know the history, do your research, make sure everything's good.

So you've gotten some like messed up cars with them and

got a taste in your mouth.

100%, absolutely.

Yeah.

Because once you buy it through the auction, you can only have so much recourse.

And by the time you get the car here, you inspect it.

Oh, something's wrong.

Yeah.

Oh, you're taking the L on that.

Especially with an exotic.

You don't want to take the L on those.

No, you got to know, you got to have holes where you buy your stuff.

And a lot of repeat business for me.

Are you doing consignment too?

We do a little bit, not very much.

It's mostly consignment if I take a consignment car that I've already sold to a customer.

Because again, it goes back to, hey, you're going to consign the car to me.

I don't know the history on the car, you know.

But like my children, you got to think about it.

If I didn't give you that, it's a liability, again, calculated risk.

If I'm selling you a car, I have to be able to stand behind it 100%.

I can't say, hey, take this, deal with it on your own.

That doesn't work like that.

How do you manage supply chain?

Because I drove by yesterday, it looked like you guys had a ton of cars.

I mean, how much money is actually tied up there?

Which location, the Sahara location?

I think the main one, yeah.

So we have two.

There's one on Dean Martin that's right off the strip and another one on Sahara.

But cumulatively between the two locations, about 35,

38 million.

Jeez.

Dude, there was like 100 cars when I drove by.

I was like,

the one on Dean Martin is...

Sometimes there's a lot of cars there, but sometimes it's like that.

You know what?

With this whole

baseball thing that was happening, I had to make some transitions.

And so we turned part of it to our service apartment, which we already had.

We made it bigger.

And just amping up, because you can't, you know, just jump from 40,000 square feet to 80,000 square feet.

You have to have a little bit of a step in between.

So that's kind of why some things are transitioning around there.

But it's usually loaded.

It's got all the big dollar stuff in there.

That's a toy store.

And

I feel like also too with Vegas transitioning into a bigger city and becoming a real city of entertainment.

You guys don't give.

Yeah.

I mean, the athletes are here.

Yeah, they're coming.

I mean, the competition is not really there in a sense fully because you specify on specific type of cars.

The thing is,

you know, it was a little bit of luck and a little bit of timing and a little bit of

God's work and some prayer behind it.

And

I think that we've made a big enough splash that we're a little bit ahead of the game overall.

The name is there.

It's established as a household name in town for sure now.

And when you're at a certain point, you're already big enough that if someone's to start, yes, they'll start.

There's going to be a lot of competition.

There always is.

And I love that.

But I think the leading factor is that we're the largest by far,

especially in this area.

Yeah, you got the most capital, the most clientele, you got a head start.

I mean,

certain cars, too, bro.

The owners of the sports teams are our customers, right?

All the athletes of the sports teams locally here are our customers, and then they're friends, and then there's you know, celebrity clients, and even a couple people that just moved to town that are big names or clients, you know.

Everyone I know in Vegas that owns a luxury car bought from Donald.

It's crazy.

Like I said, it's a household name.

So what exotics or certain cars won't be touched?

Like, nah, I don't want that.

I'm not buying it.

I don't want it.

Or what's

cars are hard to sell, too.

For me, I look at it as dollars and cents.

I'll take anything if it has profit in it.

It doesn't really matter what it is.

But there's certain cars that are problematic.

Like, you know, like the Karmas, those

Fisker Karmas.

They still making them?

They still, they're called Karma now, but those are trash.

Yeah, those are trash.

Oh, man.

What about McLaren's?

You'll sell those?

We sell, we're the only dealership in town that can service them.

Oh, really?

So I have all the equipment to service McLaren, and we sell the most McLarens out of anybody here in town.

So, yeah, I love McLaren's.

I'm a big online.

The only place I could service them?

That's crazy.

They're like race cars.

Oh, so they're super specific.

Yeah,

McLaren's.

We have special techs.

All these guys are proper techs from...

proper locations that have come over and we nitpicked and chose the best ones and we built the dream team.

Nice.

And what cars are just flying off the shelf?

They're gone the same day you got them

uh

for a while there was a lot of lamborghini hurricane evos stuff like that and for a little while it was 488 spiders they go in trends it's kind of weird you know like how it works because one kid gets it and then

yeah and other people like it or it's just a trend of what's in the market you'll see market supply go up and down and and as it's going down then all those cars get you know taken out of the market and there's more it's just it's hard to explain that yeah but it's nothing really just comes and goes right away if you have the right car and the right price and the right color and the right options, it's going to go.

Have you guys got a Kuntash yet?

A few of them.

A few of them?

Yeah, I've seen a purple one out here.

Was that yours?

No, the new Kuntash.

That was a customer of ours, actually.

Oh, it was?

Yeah.

Yo.

The new Kuntash is pretty cool.

Oh, my goodness.

What is

Lamborghini?

Call Lambsha.

It's a remake.

Yeah.

I'm a fan of the old one.

The 89, 25th anniversary edition, I think, is still the best one.

Wow, I just kind of like that.

It's a pioneer Lambo.

And the fact that they recreated it and built it like super modern, it's nostalgic to an extent.

It's so rare.

Yeah.

How many did they make?

Like 500?

I don't know, but you don't see them.

They're expensive as hell.

Yeah, they're going a million over MSRP.

Yeah,

you don't see them.

Like, you're not going to see a cool time.

So when I seen one, I was like, oh, I thought automatic.

I thought, oh, yeah.

I thought that was a good one.

We got a network with that guy.

Whoever owns that.

A milli for a car?

What's the most expensive car?

Like

the bottom?

The most expensive car I've sold was La Ferreya Apertha.

Wow.

La Ferrari.

How much?

Between

six and a half and seven and a half.

I'll give you that range.

Wow.

Million?

Laura Ferrari.

Which one?

Apertha.

Apertha?

Dude, cars are six mil?

There are some more expensive.

There's car collections that I've been to in Quayle

where there's a $30 million Ferrari in there.

Like some old school stuff.

Stuff

you wouldn't even know what it is.

And even, I don't even know.

Because past my time.

But it's just they're eclectic to that point.

Oh, like a collector car.

older.

They don't drive them, but they're like, you know, 30 million cars.

Or they're so far ahead that it's, that's what they're, or they made 10 of them or something.

Yeah, and they're like five of them have been crashed, and there's five left in the world.

Yeah, they clear stuff out.

Yeah, yeah.

If you wanted a Ferrari, could you just go to Ferrari and get one, or is there like a waiting list, like Rolex?

No, there's a waiting list.

I mean, this dealership here in town, they don't get very many allocations.

It's the clux.

So, yeah, they kind of suffer with allocations a little bit.

A lot of guys out of town will get you better cars as far as new stuff.

They have more, it's about how much volume you do.

So, if you do a lot of volume, then you get more allocations.

Gotcha.

This store here doesn't do as much volume, so they don't get as many.

But other states, San Diego, you know, Beverly Hills, they get more cars, for example.

So, you can go in there and order one and wait for it.

Like a year.

But if you wanted one brand new, sometimes you walk into Ferrari in a different state, you can get one brand new.

Yeah.

Wow.

What do you think about the Ferrari truck?

It's cool.

It's cool.

Yeah, I saw it.

It's pretty cool.

Yeah, it's different, right?

Yeah.

They're hitting the ground now.

I have one coming.

Oh, you do?

Yeah, I'll have one coming.

Yeah, because they were saying that they were sold out.

Yeah, they're sold out.

If you got the right contact, you can buy it.

So is yours going to be sold already by the time you get it?

Mm-hmm.

I'm going to sell mine early.

Bro.

So you already got some people in mind.

I got three customers waiting for it.

Wow.

Wow.

Wait for one car.

Yeah.

So what do you do?

You kind of do a bid?

No, I'll just say, hey, listen, it's available and whoever's ready to cut that check that day, they can have it.

Okay.

How much are you selling it for?

I haven't decided yet.

Once it lands, we see what the market is that day, and I'll make sure I discount it for my customers, and that's how I keep my people happy.

Okay, so you're going to discount it?

Of course, 100%.

I mean, it'll be over MSRP.

Well, I'm getting it at MSRP.

Right.

But they're going to pay over MSRP.

Right.

But I'm not going to charge them crazy like somebody else would.

Yeah.

Doesn't work.

You value customer service.

100%.

Birth of the business on customer service.

Right.

With that Ferrari truck, it's worth selling over MSRP.

Well, he could, but he values a long-term relationship.

A lot of people play the short game.

I play the long game.

Yeah.

But you want them to buy it from you again.

over and over dude my friend bought seven cars from him

seven yeah

i've had one customer buy 40 something cars from me for real he spent over 30 million dollars with me oh my god one customer alone

one day yeah that's bad and that's not normal that's not normal because usually it's like one time you don't like the service or you oversold you or it just wasn't good so you build a relationship with them like kind of like family in a way 100 you have to i'm available you can call me on my cell phone at midnight i'll never be too big for my britches like my phone is always my number's out there.

You want to get a hold of me?

You can get a hold of me.

Some people are like, oh, I own this store.

I own that store.

No, I'm not available.

No, that's not how it works.

You have to be able to get a hold of me.

Because if I'm doing something with you, even if I'm dealing with a salesperson, I have an issue.

I'm going to call the owner and say, hey, what's going on?

I'll handle it.

Wow.

You have to.

Not a lot of people.

Customers do, though.

No, they don't.

That's where the fall is.

Right.

Because they're bigger than the company.

They're too big for their britches.

Right, you go.

And how do you go about marketing or is everything word of mouth?

We did a lot of marketing in the beginning, now it's a lot of word of mouth, now it's a lot of referrals, right?

Yeah, the product speaks for itself.

Yeah, he's selling something to a certain group of people.

The thing is, though, when these people,

they're all like for you, for example, if you got a car from me, right?

It would come up in one of your podcasts, you would come up somewhere, sing with you, hey, I bought it from Nick.

Oh, cool.

Well, you're credible.

You're credible.

Yeah.

Great.

Now I became credible.

So it's, you know.

Right.

You're selling to the right people.

Yeah, telling the right people, not even that, but they just talk, right?

And if they have a great experience of nothing bad to say, like them, then it's on.

Why not?

Yeah.

I think you heard an example.

Bro, he's going to discount a Ferrari truck for his customers.

You don't hear.

No, why he said that.

Especially, do you know why, though, even to a step further?

If I discount it and I give it to him at a good price, I know that guy's going to be bored of it in six months.

And he's going to give it back to me.

I'm going to make money on it again.

Right?

Facts.

Bigger play.

Why do you think a lot of luxury car dealerships judge you on the clothes you wear when you walk in?

You know what?

That's one thing.

It's a great question.

Actually, I love that you asked that because this is the thing.

I had a guy come in on a bicycle and buy a Porsche.

Okay, this guy looked like a bum.

Flip-flops.

His nails weren't cut.

He looked like a straight trash.

Like, honestly, God, you would never expect that.

And he came in.

I want to sit in this car.

I want to look at this car.

Sure.

Well, how can I help you?

And it just so happened that that day I was dealing with treat him like normal.

Like I didn't even.

That didn't even phase me.

Wow.

Right.

And he's like, you know what?

Thank you.

He's like, I just won the lottery, actually.

And so I want to buy a car.

He told me at the end of the transaction, the wire hit the next morning.

Whoa.

Wow.

He's like, what made you treat him normal?

Like, what?

Because that's.

What makes you like that?

Because when I was 12 or 13 years old, I would go into dealerships and I would negotiate deals for my mom or, you know, and my brother when they were buying cars.

And I would negotiate the deal.

And that one salesperson that took me serious.

It taught me then, like, hey, look, it helps to take you seriously.

We went back and bought those two cars that I negotiated.

You You got to just treat everybody equal, man.

Like, there's no such thing as, oh, because I wear, you know, this brand or that brand, I'm so-and-so.

It doesn't mean nothing.

These are clothes.

We all eat the same.

We all sleep the same.

We all go to the bathroom the same.

We're just all normal people.

We got to help each other just cultivate that.

You don't ever judge someone by how they dress.

Yeah.

Or they have a deficiency or a lisp or something.

But why?

Like, why do that?

Just treat everybody 100%.

100%.

I walked in the Rolex store.

That's so solid, bro.

Yeah, no, it's facts.

I walked in the Rolex store in Caesars and I was wearing sweatpants and a hoodie.

No one would talk to me.

I roll up my sleeve, pull out the 100K watch.

They come talk to me.

I'm like, I don't even want to be here.

Now you don't want to do it.

You already got a bad taste in your mouth, right?

Like, I walked around the whole store for 10, 20 minutes.

No one even spoke to you.

No one.

That's facts, dude.

The people that have real money, and I've seen a lot of it, believe me.

Okay, there's people that come in that are dripping in like

brands and diamonds and this and that.

And then there's guys that come in that are golf shirts, shorts, wearing like a regular Rolex,

nothing.

And they have more money than you can even count.

And then the people that come in, so what's my credit like?

Can I get approved for this car?

What's my payment going to be?

Like, it's like, it's a whole different ballgame, right?

I think I'm a firm believer in that.

When you're trying that hard, you really don't got it.

And I know that people that have it, they don't show it.

True wealth very quiet right because when you have real money you don't want to talk about it yeah so yeah a lot of the billionaires are they just want they they they want what they want yeah they don't they don't it's not too much to talk about it no they why would they it's just you know it becomes just a norm at that point and it's just something that makes life a little easier right

do you want to expand to other cities or are you sticking with vegas definitely gonna expand uh working on some stuff out in utah right now um

and that's about it i think for we'll all expand maybe in california eventually but not right now, not for a while.

Vegas is our main focus.

Right.

Yeah, he's in it.

He's growing it.

Vegas are main focus.

Why Utah?

Just in St.

George, there's a little bit of a gap there that we're filling right now already.

So we already have a location getting set up over there.

Okay.

Oh, okay.

So they don't have any spots out there?

No.

Pretty much ordered.

It's not a big enough market for too many people to go into, but I just need something there just to facilitate what I'm already doing over there.

Gotcha.

But Vegas is our main hub.

And then, company culture-wise, how did you build such a cool culture?

You know, it comes back to

it's not work when you're having fun, right?

So if you go to work in the morning, you wake up, you're excited to go there, you know, you're dressed

acceptable to deal with people that come in because we have to look good to deal with people, right?

But, you know, it's not over the top where you have to go and wear a three-piece suit and feel stuffy.

You want to go be relaxed, go in, have fun.

I have a golf range in my dealership, ping-pong tables,

pinball, you We have some games and stuff like that.

It's the culture is built from within and it all comes from the person that's leading the group, which would be me in that sense.

And if I'm relaxed, I want every of you relaxed.

If you're not happy, I want you to tell me what's going on.

You know, and kind of understand your people.

Everybody has issues.

People deal with things on a daily basis.

Some people have illnesses.

Some people have family that has illnesses.

And we carry that stress as human beings because we're caring people, right?

So if they're stressed, I'm stressed for them.

And how can I help that situation?

So the culture is all about, like, we've got to help each other.

We're a team.

And if I don't have my team, I'm nothing.

I'm just one person.

I cannot do anything in that place that I could make it go by myself.

I am my team, right?

And my team is all together and they all look after each other.

Just like yesterday, we did an outing at Top Golf for the watch party for the Golden Nights.

We shut the dealership down at 4 o'clock.

Said, everybody, go.

Let's all go out and enjoy.

That's called culture.

Right.

So you consider them friends and family.

Yeah, friends and family.

Of course.

We all work together.

We have each other's backs.

They're watching something I don't see.

I'm watching something they don't see.

That's how the culture is built.

It's got to be built from within.

Yeah.

I feel like a lot of companies just care about the work and not.

Well, I mean,

the happier the employee, the longer they stay.

100%.

Yeah, the longer it's less turnover.

You don't got to deal with training new people, new personalities.

Can't trust people.

stuff like that.

He kind of keeps his core together.

It's a good business model.

Yeah, you have to, man.

It's really important.

And that's where people fall and fail, you know, because they don't have that culture.

You can have all the money in the world.

You could have the best business, but you don't have your team behind you or nothing.

So how do you deal with money?

Speaking of money, is that like super important to you or you just do the business part mainly for fun?

You seem so grounded.

Yeah.

I am, yeah, because I know what I went through to get here.

You seem so grounded.

Like, you just...

You know, you already know.

Like, you know, it's just, I know what I went through to get here.

I know how hard it was.

I know all the things I went against, all the people that were against me, even when I was getting my licenses here in town.

Oh, he's never going to make it.

You know, these other dealers in town.

And now they're like, hey, can we be your best friend?

Let's go for dinner.

I'm cool.

I'll go for dinner with you.

But I already knew where you came from.

Have you worked for anybody ever?

Yeah, I worked at a dealership in Canada

for a little bit.

What did you do as a salesperson?

I wasn't in sales.

I was doing buying.

I was a buyer.

I signed my dealership.

I opened and sold it off and went and worked worked for somebody for a little while oh so you were a buyer you know as a buyer and basically handle their locations was that a play on just learning the infrastructure absolutely getting the the the basically the blueprint down so you can one day build something that you have now the blueprint is what you make it right but that being said you got to take a little bit of everything and you got to create your own blueprint right because if you follow somebody else's blueprint you're following their vision

you know we can follow your vision if you have your own ideas and you put it all together and you you have your own blueprint that you're following.

In life, we all follow our own blueprint.

And so I believe that's why I went to work for somebody to learn about that part of that position.

Or I did something else.

I was in medical sales for a little bit, I did, to learn a different part of the position.

I got to learn how people think.

When you're coming in, I'm dealing with you.

I got to know.

I got to read you right there.

Yeah.

You know, as superficial as that is, but I have to understand where you're coming from.

That's the part of sales.

Yeah.

That's that's sales.

Yeah.

That's the psychology of sales.

Yeah.

It's a high-income skill if you master it.

Absolutely.

Because you can actually see who you're selling to for.

You can ask them certain questions.

You can tell their body language if they got it or not.

He can tell.

100%.

When you look back at the growth of the company, what were some big moments or like big setbacks or lessons you remember?

You know, in the beginning, coming from Canada to here, they don't recognize your credit.

You know, I got an 800 score in Canada, but that meant nothing here.

It'd be like me being a person that was just born and have no credit or zero.

It doesn't matter.

It doesn't doesn't matter if you have a credit card in Canada.

It doesn't mean nothing here.

So I had to start from zero, which like a $250 prepaid credit card.

Can you imagine that?

To try and build credit and build credit like that.

And you need credit in this business 100%.

I'm not saying you can't do without credit.

You have to have credit to do it.

Yeah.

And so those are some of the challenges I went through.

Because the bank will give you a line of credit to buy the cars.

If you have good credit and you have the financials and you have the stability and the stuff behind it to support it.

Otherwise, no.

Especially right now trying to get a uh line for cars no way man it's impossible the banks are so scared right now really yeah absolutely there's too much like too much yeah it's too the ground too shaky right now there's a bit of interest rates going up or well no it's just the you got the war you got the currency you got we're we're basically in a in a recession yeah we're in a recession and it has they don't know how bad it's going to get so they're kind of pulling back a little bit.

Vegas is going to be six months behind the recession.

Why?

Because of the sports teams we have.

We We have too much hype.

But Formula One, the Knights are doing great.

You got the Raiders here.

You got baseball around the corner.

So many drawings.

So there's so many things that are drawing.

But soon enough, it's going to catch up.

It always catches up.

What goes up must come down, right?

That's facts.

So it's eventually it's going to catch up and we will feel the recession.

Will it be as bad as most places?

Probably not, because this is a place where people come with a mindset.

If I'm going to Vegas, I'm going to spend money.

Right.

So it's that mindset.

But we're definitely going to feel it for sure.

And during the pressure times to uh depressing times vegas the travel the tourism actually goes up

is a happy place for them yeah

interesting yeah yeah i know that so have you been through a recession in the car industry yet um

yes actually i have but not as not like as bad think about it like this right for example when All these prices were going up, we went through a different kind of recession.

When the prices started adjusting, I owned everything super high.

and this was after COVID, right?

Early started to adjust.

I mean, you're losing 20,000, 30,000 per car.

You have to be able to

purchase, right?

From the end of the day, the price would just drop overnight.

Wow.

You know?

And

how did that pivot?

You have to just unload and you have to stay lean.

Yeah.

And you don't make money when you sell.

You make money when you buy.

I've always said that.

That's my main thing.

The money is made when you buy the car.

And that's why you gotta wait for the deals.

Some people, just because they have money available, they wanna go spend it all on cars.

Don't do that.

Don't do that.

Take your time, pick and choose your

stuff.

But during the market adjusting, I had to just take those L's.

Wow.

You have to.

And that's where most people couldn't because they spent that money.

They thought this is never going to end.

Out of everything I would sell, I'd put money aside.

Put money aside.

I had to have that slush fund to go back and take that money and bring all my inventory back to normal.

So if you didn't do that, you would have been screwed.

His business line, his business acumen is there.

He thought all the way through.

Most people probably would have closed shop or just liquidated everything.

You can go from having all the equity.

You could have $500,000 in equity in your cars because you have profit laid on the table.

But that could flip overnight and you have negative $500,000.

How are you going to write the check for that $500,000?

Most guys don't have that.

They're working on too thin of cash flow to be able to do that.

And because...

planning and how you structure your stuff you you set it up so that way you're always able to just pivot and move along Yeah.

Wow.

Learned a lot, man.

You got anything else?

No, I wanted to ask you, so

when buying cars, do you buy based off trends, demands,

maybe colors, or you kind of hear what your customers are saying or what they're requesting?

And then you're like, okay, cool.

My next set of cars are going to be these 10 or 15 or these 20 based on this.

And how do you, what's the mindset going in when you're buying?

When you remove build the dollars and cents aspect of it?

It's a little bit of everything.

A lot of it goes into this, right?

So it's like what my customers want, but it's also like what's hot for you.

Yeah.

Like you're like,

would I buy that?

Like black on tan interior, McLaren, like for example, black wheels, that's hot.

That's a goddamn look.

Compared to this one, it's just black on black, silver wheels.

It looks basic.

People want that stuff that's the nice color combinations, the good specs, good options.

You know, that's what I look for, right?

You got to find what's kind of the X X factor of it,

right?

And that's what really makes it appealing to people.

Because if I have a car online,

how is mine different than anybody else's?

Right, right.

How is this

George McLaren

different from this orange McLaren?

It's got to have something to it, something about it.

Yeah, something different.

You just look for the uniqueness of a car, you know.

Okay.

Yes, we make it unique, you know, little things like that.

Oh, so you make them unique.

Sometimes little tricks and trade.

I got you.

Last question: what's your dream car?

I think you got them all.

Yeah, you do.

I do.

I'm

I do.

I do.

I mean, I love Porsche's.

I'm a big Porsche fan.

I have a 91.965.

That was one of my dream cars.

I put it aside.

18 GT2RS.

I just love it.

Put it aside.

But I think eventually I'd like to just get a La Ferrari just to have

Laugh.

Which one?

Which year?

I'll probably go for 14.

14.

They only made it two years.

But the thing is is that that was one of the biggest hyper cars that we sold originally.

And I said, man, one day I'm going to have one of these.

Yeah.

Wow.

And I can do it now, but it's not tough.

How much was it?

Back then, I think.

Yeah, we flew out on my customer's jet to go pick it up.

It was 3.75 million.

The doors go up light.

Yeah.

The car only brand new was only like 1.5, right?

Wow.

That's insane, man.

It's been an honor.

Any person, comments?

No, man.

Thanks for having me out.

I appreciate you guys.

For sure.

It's a a solid podcast.

Awesome.

We'll do some follow-up.

Yeah.

We'll sell some cars from this, I think.

Let's do it.

Yeah.

Definitely should.

Wayne, anything?

Make sure you guys holler at Nick or your exotics.

He's the guy.

Yeah, if you're in Vegas, stop by Vegas Auto Gallery, guys.

See you next time.

Peace.