 doing? It's Andy Elliott. I'm here today with Cody Carter and check this out. I'm gonna introduce Cody here in just a second and I'm gonna pass it over to him and Cody's gonna give us some gold nuggets today. Cody's gonna maybe just share a little bit with us about how he sold almost 1,100 cars in 2019. Okay obviously Cody's goal this year is 1,300 and obviously it's April 1st 2020 so we are in the middle of the coronavirus and as Cody I said Cody is the goal gonna go down and I would like for him to share with you what he said and I'd love for Cody to share with you not only how he has sold 1,100 cars last year but how he's gonna continue to not just maintain but increase. Cody awesome to have you here with us a guy that sells 1,100 cars that's like a car sells ninja you're 28 years old he's married he's got two kids Cody introduce yourself and rock and roll brother it's all you. Yeah again I'm Cody Carter I work as an internet manager in Orange County for Toyota. It's been it was a crazy year last year it was over double the year prior did 495 in 2018 on 11 or 1,070 in 2020 2019 so it was a huge increase the biggest priority to me always is gonna be leasing like the least game is where it's gonna be huge for everyone that constant customer retention you see people come back every three years so that's big for me and finding out what scenarios are gonna make sense for your customer we got you know we all have customers that are looking for affordable payments especially in this current time people are a little stressed out sure but that that's the biggest thing for me is finding out what works what doesn't work and spending time right there's a lot of time that goes into it on my end where basically I'll sit there today's a new new new incentives for Toyota so I spent a few hours this morning run through every single scenario for every car to find out what that payment is going to be what the sweet spot is for the dealer for the customer and then I make a spreadsheet for that so that helps us a ton and a big thing here on my end is you know a thousand cars right they must be you know spoon to you but that's in reality it's not the case we work super hard for those deals and and just take it takes time takes a lot of hard work and it didn't happen overnight the day yes so you're not the house mouse yeah we we call it spoon boy but yeah we don't know that's not me and our store is pretty fair when it comes to that the there's a couple guys that get deals but honestly I don't have the time I have my own thing going so so you said a couple things and I want to go back to where you just said prepare tell me about this morning tell me what you did this morning so this morning was I would say is an easy month for me because the way Toyota works it's every two months are the big changes but this morning I was up 730 waiting for the current incentives to come out and once they released at about 8 o'clock I'll go through and see what differed from last month to this month and make those changes on my excitement personal site for these lease deals because majority probably 90% of what I'm doing is lease and so this morning I just seen what went down which in my we lost some incentives for tundra as things like that sure make those adjustments and then I make a post about hey this got better this got worse you know these are the things that look out for sure that help drive more business and you said so so you love and you treat this car sales industry business as your own business would you agree well yeah it's just it's definitely a small business within a larger business right yes you don't have to pay you're not paying for the inventory you're not paying for most of the supplies so you just focus on your part do really good at what you do on my end I've invested my own money to make things work the way I want it right you said your own money oh yeah it's there's a lot which means you don't ask your dealership to build your dream for you you're building your own dream so I'll spend the money and rare occasions like oh by the way can we can we give you something to help with that in certain cases I'm cool with that I'm like okay fine like originally I have like this pen right yeah I bought the pens a couple hundred bucks and pens and for a while I was just paying for myself and the dealers like well let me pay for those right yeah and when it came to like my personal website um I didn't want any money because I want to control it right because it's it's my business so I spent the money that took to make a website that works for me and at the end of the day I was like yeah I don't want any money because I don't want you to have any say it's my business love it man that is so freaking awesome man and um what is the what what is the preparation you know you were talking about doing these incentives and all that stuff um number one having your own website makes you be able to um do your own lead generation right yeah so most of my leads are generated from my site um the site I had a really basic version for a couple years we're literally I was just running a spreadsheet and people would get a hold of this link to the google docs and you know they would share it with their friends and things like that so that worked for two years and I was like well it's kind of getting a little more advanced there's too many options it's hard to display so in December I launched a website um and we've had about 2,700 subscribers since December so it is awesome yeah and do you push your website every day I mean is it a part of your day oh yeah so I'm constantly tweaking deals and finding scenarios because when I have the time I'm like okay well first this bank was good well then this incentive changed or what about this term it's always about finding the sweet spot for every deal to make people want it right and that's what's a little bit different I'm not sitting there waiting for the deal let's let's create deals um in those days so you're fishing non-stock oh yeah and there's always times where we talk about like um like why won't one more deal for the month I need two more deals right and people are out there trying to find those deals I'm like fine well let me post this I'll get a deal in an hour you know if if I need that last deal I'll get it yeah I love it yeah I love it and so and so you create your own website you drive your own traffic lead gin is huge you're not going to sit back and wait on the dealership let me ask you this out of all the cars that you sold last year would how what percent would you say were from your own lead gin I'd probably say 60 70 percent realistically amazing yeah that is beautiful and you created that you know what your future is going to look like because you're creating it right now yeah the biggest thing is for me is with that lease game you're constantly creating the pipeline for the future um a lot of you know I'm trying to be unique where instead of these 36-month leases we were I pushed 24 months really hard because we'll see them even faster oh yeah so that that's huge so you have a short-term game and a long-term game constantly playing yeah you know I always want to display whatever is the lowest payment right that's because what people are looking for sometimes that's not 24 months but a lot of times I'll be like well hey for 15 bucks you know we can go 24 months and I'll see you that much sooner people get tired of cars anyways nowadays they want the newest thing sure I love it and and something you said you did this morning I always talk about this uh it's I always I call it blocking tackling overcoming objections being prepared right now with everything that's going on in the world you can either panic or you can prepare right I mean there's one or two things that you can do um give me your feel on are you panicking right now or are you preparing what are you doing I'm not pretty calm right now I'm working extremely limited schedule just a couple days a week but I'm not really concerned about that I uh I tell a lot of the guys on my team I hate if you guys are good with money we'll be good for like once you get past this month it's gonna be fine everything is going to get bigger we're getting unique kind of calls right now we're getting a lot of calls where people are like well my lease is up what am I going to do so these people are are a little panicked but that means they're going to be ready when when we're going full swing so I just don't worry we're going to be perfectly fine and you're preparing now watch this you're not even in the car dealership today you're in a hotel room you're going to help your little brother we had a conversation about this um obviously you're a leader you love teaching you love training I know you believe in training hardcore you were talking this morning about preparing scenarios in advance where if a customer says this doesn't work for me you don't have to get up go to your manager leave the customer for 10 minutes you actually are prepared to offer what's next at the table am I right yeah so there's a ton of different scenarios that I have in advance it's it's either just tweak the terms and things like that to make it work for everybody I'm also at a store that's a little unique where we have our in the internet team we all have our own desking so we can desk everything directly so that helps a lot yeah so so you're not relying on chances and you believe I mean in the beginning when you first started selling you've been selling since you were 18 years old you're 20 hey so you've been doing it for roughly about 10 years and you've come so far and I can definitely tell you're going to be one of the top sales people in the country unbelievable uh do you know where you rank in the country as far as car sales do you know for Toyota I rank number two number two in the country for Toyota correct yeah man that is badass yeah number one is kind of he doesn't count but we'll beat him anyways oh yeah you're gonna beat him that's amazing dude okay and then um as you continue to grow and push yourself to the next level obviously you want to sell 200 more cars than you did last year um I would like to ask you that press that push does preparing for scenario training does that help you do that because time is money it helps you do things faster oh yeah it's always preparing and like the way my schedule works on Fridays or essentially my Mondays right so I'll get up crazy early on a on a Friday and I'll get there two hours early just to run through a bunch of new things check the current inventory it's just being ready for what what's out there and I noticed like when I come in that early that's really changed everything um you know I've almost considered coming in earlier another day too but at least Friday that my Monday it's been a big change for me to be in there early and prepared you're always ahead of your competition right oh yeah you know you always want to crush them at the end of the day I love it man that's probably my favorite word I always say crush it too that's amazing dude I love it um okay so number one it's amazing meeting you and obviously everybody right now is just seeing somebody that's going to go very far in life I would love to do this there's so many I mean let's say we have two million sales people in the country I don't know what the number is let's say it's two million what what would you say to them if you had Cody advice what would it be um you know honestly it's think big think bigger than anybody else in your store right it's spend the time and the money to to do something that's crazy right I've done plenty of things that work and a lot of things that don't work but that's where I'm at you know people are going to hate you along the way there's plenty of guys that don't like what I do but I think that's good yeah because they're on the sidelines yeah nobody likes somebody on the field winning man yeah they're getting left behind a little bit but that's okay at the end of the day I'm working for me and my family and that's the most important part I love it man you're amazing dude you're an inspiration to everybody and at 28 you've come so far and by the way were were you just blessed with like a gifted spoon were you rich coming out of high school would you just tell us what when you started at 18 where were you can you tell that real quick so you know last year high school I got kicked out of the house and so I lived couch to couch and I was working a small sales job different industry and then I chased a girl to Arizona and I got an email one day said hey do you want to come in for an interview sell cars all right and I just said reply back well I'm not really interested I don't think it's for me they said okay well we'll see you next day anyways just come in came in I was talking to him I'm like I really don't want to do a commission job you know I like what I'm doing now like oh well you know these guys make five grand I'm like okay five grand you know I'm in at 18 19 that was decent you know yeah it's been crazy I love it so family background little chaotic no silver spoon am I right yes you know I had a little of my dad and I had my my stepmom she was awesome and but yeah it was a little different and no big deal you just got to overcome you got to work for yourself overcome man that's the magic word people that come from nothing can end up with the most it's a beautiful life like I said I haven't got to know you you know like like a brother but I will tell you this that everything that you say and every every word that you said will relate to somebody in the country somebody that right now you know doesn't have a lot maybe is broke maybe is struggling how many times in your life have you been broke have you had nothing before I mean literally oh yeah I mean there's been times like like you know you're doing well now but there's been plenty of times when I go hopefully I get that checks I can put gas in my car right you know that at one point that was when I was 18 that was the case you know just getting by and you know I always say I always want to be a little more on the humble side I'm like I'm doing well yes but there's plenty of other people that are doing great you know and it's not just about me it's about the overall helping everybody yes did you're amazing man I think everybody will take something from today that will help them push to the next level in life Cody I appreciate everything that you shared with everybody and your your words are awesome I learned a bunch from you today I'm just telling you I learned every single day and after 23 years I literally meet somebody every every day and I'm just learning it just never ends how do you do you feel like you still learn something every single day well yeah I always was told if you think you know it all you're pretty much dead it's there's always something out there and I'll see something scroll through I'm like man I want to do that I don't how do I figure that out so it's you've got to learn you got to always be changing love it man you're awesome dude well I can't wait to look back in a year from now watch you hit 1,300 cars we'll have to do another one of these at 2021 in January so we can let everybody know where you finished man and better work hard to get there so we'll make it happen you will man you don't you definitely don't sound like a quitter and you definitely fell in I always say there's a there's a find a way people and then there's excuse makers excuse makers are gonna say well this year is already a wash right I had goals I had big goals you know we got hit with this virus you know you might as well just start planning for 2021 because this year is over and then there's find a way people that say nah now I'm gonna find a way yeah we got a lot of time this will be over in a month or so yep and what you're doing during this time is preparing and getting ready am I right oh yeah and we're I'm loading up for the future there's a lot of people in the pipeline still yeah and and instead of sitting around your training preparing going through solution ideas and then also building that pipeline and getting ready so once the once the public says all right social distancing is over you're gonna come out of the cage like a dang wild animal am I right yeah even if the social distancing doesn't go away for a while once these stay-at-home orders start to lighten up it's gonna be crazy it's gonna be huge I think I'm gonna help us too I love it you're awesome dude okay man well listen I appreciate it everybody Cody's amazing man if you need anything at all you can comment below and like I said he's in California Orange County Cody Carter amazing 28 years old wife two kids four and a six year old right that's correct I know two and four they both just changed this in March it was a big one you have more kids we done well my wife would like to have more I think we're done I think two is perfect go up another baby go have another baby have one more then the cars get more expensive that's true man but go have another baby call Mandy I'm just kidding have a good day hey listen it's great meeting you Cody you're amazing everybody's gonna take a ton from you today and have a blessed day brother and I'll talk to you soon okay I'll talk to you later all right brother