My name is Jared Hicks, I’m 27 years old. I’ve been at Toyota for about four years, and I’ve been in the Used Car Manager position for about a year. That’s pretty much how long we’ve been using Accu-trade as well. We were a Vauto dealership, we’ve got a couple of different dealers that are under us. We’ve got a Lexus store and partnerships in a couple of other stores. But mainly we were using Vauto until my position kind of emerged. And then, we were introduced to Accu-trade last year, I’d say April of last year is when we kind of parted ways with Vauto and started using Accu-trade. And we’ve been rolling along ever since, quite happily, to be honest.

Robert Hollenshead: That’s, that’s really great news. I’ve gotten oblique feedback from Sean’s experience, your experience, at your stores. And it’s obviously a great thing for, for us to hear these stories. First I appreciate it greatly that you’re getting some benefit from it, but secondly, there’s going to be some fun things coming to the tool. In the next, I’m going to say month that should be in the next couple of weeks that I think are going to be really great adds for you. Do you use Monroney labels at all the, for looking up original stickers?

Jared Hicks: Nope. Never even heard of it to be quite Frank with you.

Robert Hollenshead: Okay. That’s going to be on your tool. So when you’re looking at a car, you push the button and you actually will see the original Monroney on I think 27 brands of cars. There’s about 10 brands that we don’t have, but on a large number of cars, as soon as you get the VIN, you’re going to actually be able to see the original Monroney label. I think that’s actually useful in many cases. If you know, if you’re looking at chicken salad or chicken poop, you follow me? 

Jared Hicks: That’s right.

Robert Hollenshead: It gets you in a little bit deeper.

You’re going to have the ability to share your condition report. When you are actually doing your appraisal and hopefully folks will be starting to take, I would say, you know, a half a dozen to a dozen pictures to highlight damage and so forth. Obviously that’s useful then as the used car invoice to show the consumer as the rationality of why you’re giving them X for the car, that your insurance company has underwritten that right. 

It really does give a rational visual third party let’s call it, you know, when you just walk out and then as the used car manager and you dump the appraisal on the salesperson’s desk it’s not quite the same because you’re just picking a number out of the air, which is probably the right number, but the consumer doesn’t know where it came from or why you follow me when we rationalize it, you know, our theory is that you really are putting it into a format that in today’s world, it allows someone to consider the facts in order to recognize the validity of the number that you came up with. 

As we highlight a dent and a scratch, you know, like a wheel or a tire or whatever it might be, you know, a bumper, a burn hole, a stink in the car that’s somebody sucking on cigars, right? 

In other words, all of those things that we, it, it allows you to, it’s not trying to hurt the customer. You’re quantifying things that in a rational way you enable them to see. So from that point, you’re going to be able to actually share as the used car invoice, not, not as the invoice, but as the universal condition report with any select group of dealers that you would like to advance that car to. 

So if you traded the vehicle for 12 g’s and you feel that you have four or five people that, you could theoretically be a buyer for that unit at 14 g’s, right? You’re able to put it in as a purchase value, where they know that, you know. 

You’re relatively young in the business when you were at a Toyota or a Lexus store, the cars that you trade are very desirable, even if they’re junk, you understand, because from an acquisition person, an animal, a used car dealer, that is constantly looking for drugs, a car, right? The further up the chain of events that you can get them to, to the source, the cars become more valuable, you see? Or in other words, when you as the used car manager have now made a conscious decision to enable a drug addict to have access to your drugs, right?

It’s, it really has a very similar thing. In other words, the first, they’re honoured that you would allow them to have access to it. Then secondly, it’s in a platform that, you know, really can’t be Mickey’d with, they can’t come in and try to pay you less or whatever.

And thirdly, if you do it in a way that we’re, we built the platform, to allow, you know like on a category of cars, you know six people to see those cars you’ve created what we’ve always done in the auction lanes, create the testosterone infused. If you invite this guy, and that guy, and that guy in three and them guys know the other three guys and they also don’t know the other three guys. So the mystery remains, who is it that’s actually going to pick that car off? You follow me? That testosterone, infused environment. 

I guarantee you we will enable you to make wholesale profit that you’re not sure if you put it on the wholesale line or on the retail line, but it’s definitely going on the line of your deposit ticket going into the bank as a full retail profit. You see what I’m saying? 

Jared Hicks: Yup. 100%.

Robert Hollenshead: In other words, the theory of you know, “trade everything you can retail everything, drop the price until you can sell it”. It’s, it’s a theory, that from my perspective never was valid. And I think people are actually recognizing this is how we have talked ourselves into this profit compression and to the point where you can’t make nothing on a new car, now you can’t make nothing on a used car cause you can’t retail something that didn’t make any sense to retail. When at the moment of acquisition you had the opportunity to make a retail profit wholesale.

Logan Keirstead: Now on that point, Jared, what percentage of vehicles would you say you now wholesale versus retail? And then in addition to that, where you are, what are you seeing with regards to the wholesale marketplaces? What percentage would you sell on Eblock,  Traderev or actually live at the auctions and how have you seen that shift?

Jared Hicks: Just to touch a bit, it’s tough to put a percentage on what I wholesale and what I retail just because I look at every car differently. I, I think if you know there is any sort of profit there, even if I sell it “as is” on my lot, every car is different. 

I mean anything pretty much over 2010 and over. For one, before I sent it to a live auction, I put everything on TradeRev. I’m probably the heaviest user on TradeRev in Atlantic Canada. We had their top metal mover for 2019, I think we’ve probably sold hundreds of cars on TraveRev.  So anytime before I send something to the auction, I’ll try it on TradeRev first, because if I can make money on TradeRev before I sent it to the lane of the unknown, you never know what you’re gonna get at an auction. If I know I can make money on TradeRev right at my dealership, they come to my door, they pick it up. It’s no… it’s super easy to do. I’ve been doing that quite often. I just put, I had an ‘08 Highlander come in on trade this week. 

I pay 2,500 bucks for it. I just put it on TradeRev and it’s at five grand right now.

Robert Hollenshead: How much did that Accu-Trade call that car?

Jared Hicks: SO, Accu-Trade hit it right on the nose. So I’ll pull, I actually have it open here. I’ll pull it right up.

Robert Hollenshead: This is, this is interesting information because if you are their star, or banner Eastern Canada user. My feeling is all dealers would get the benefit of Accu-trade doing exactly the same thing. Cause basically you really will know what you’re going to get for the car before you even start.

Jared Hicks: Just to touch on that, I mean I think there’s, there’s a reason why we’re still, there’s many reasons why we’re continuing to use Accu-trade and didn’t go back to Vauto. Price is obviously one of them, it’s significantly cheaper.

But other than that, the numbers are right. I mean we’ve, we’ve been doing this since you know, March, April, and we continued through 2019 we had the highest market share Toyota store, we had the highest market share at all the stores in Saint John. We sold a thousand cars. Honda sold 900. We, we sold the most cars in Saint John using a tool that no one else is using because the numbers, the numbers are right. 

I mean it’s, for example, this 2018 Highlander, it told me to pay $2,500 for which I did. It was telling me the target auction, it should bring 3,500 bucks. And if I wanted to retail it to retail it for 6,500 well for me, I mean that’s the piece that could sit here for a hundred days or I put it on TradeRev and the numbers were right. Instead of getting 35 you know, I got five grand.

Robert Hollenshead: That’s exactly right. So basically you made a retail profit, wholesale. 

Jared Hicks: I made a retail profit on a wholesale piece this morning and it’s not going on the board. My salesman don’t see it. My managers don’t see it. The only people that see it are me, my general manager and my accountants.

Robert Hollenshead: Can I make one suggestion to you? Cause I think it could be interesting. It’s kind of a double edged sword, but I personally see it as a, so when you list a car on TradeRev, do they come out and take the pictures or you take the pictures?

Jared Hicks: I do it myself. 

Robert Hollenshead: Have you ever taken the pictures on Accu-trade and looked at the used car condition report when you’re done with it?

Jared Hicks: No, I have not.

Robert Hollenshead: It’s really important to do my friend because when you do it, I think when you see our condition report compared to TradeRev, they’re in different categories. They’re in different leagues. If you just went in, took your pictures and put in a dent and a scratch, you follow me, and looked at the condition report, what you’re going to see is an amazing thing and all market details, all market retail detail below it. 

If dealers were able to push that to TradeRev, you follow me? 

The buyer of that car would see every freaking thing, all in one page and they would be able to bid faster with more confidence. You follow me? 

As a result, it would really be a tremendous favor if you’d be able to do that. Just go in, VIN decode, snap your pictures around the car, right?  And then go in and look at the condition report when that, when that happens, I think what you’re going to see is a little tiny bit of a shock, especially if you put in a scratch in a wheel and a thing and whatever, right?

Everything that you need to be, if you were a buyer of that car, everything is in a concise, easy to look at and easy to say. Yeah, I’ll take that car and knock it off. You see what I’m saying to you?

Jared Hicks: On my phone, I just to be honest with you, the camera icon in the top right corner on my app to take pictures of, I’ve never done that. Didn’t even notice it there to be honest, it kind of blends in. I just found it.

Robert Hollenshead: When you do it, I think you’re going to have a shock brother. You follow me?

Jared Hicks: My question is where do these pictures like, so if I go on from my phone to my computer, I’m now my computer, I click my, you know, nine little dots there in the corner and I can do my dealer condition a report now you got it. And bring it up. Is, are the pictures going to be in that as well?

Robert Hollenshead: Absolutely. Absolutely. And they’re going to be on the used car invoice as well to show the consumers. So when you’re trading the car from the consumer, it only shows very limited information, but all the pictures of the damage and then the value related adds and deducts. You’ve got low miles, it’s got a dent and a scratch, it’s got a bad Carfax. How much damage was there?  When you leverage that with the consumer, the sales person’s job is almost finished. And here’s what my suggestion was going to be. The salesperson can actually remain engaged with the consumer by doing the exact same process. If the salesperson is on Accu-Trade, they can walk out with the consumer and highlight different things, good things, bad things. So when they go back in and they go to the consumer condition report, they can, this consumer can actually see this is their specific car and these are the specific characteristics that lead us to conclude that the insurance company that’s guaranteeing the price of this particular car to the dealership says they could pay you $2,752 you follow me? And and at at that moment, you know, I think you would, I believe you’re going to agree with what I’m going to tell you… 

The salesperson is then semi emasculated from jumping out of his seat and rushing over to you to ask for another thousand dollars for the trade. 

Jared Hicks: Sure.

Robert Hollenshead: Cause it happens constantly where a salesperson looks for the path of least resistance as soon as the consumer pushes back on the value, he comes to you and says, “ Ah Boss, they were down the street. They gave him $3,000 more for the car. You got to get realistic with this trade… It’s crazy. I can’t trade it for this.” Does that ever happen to you? 

Jared Hicks: Yeah, absolutely. I just like to touch on it a bit. So I just, I want to kind of explain our process and how we do things here. So for one, my salesman don’t have access to Accu-trade, only the managers do. We do that a couple of different reasons and it does work out well.

And just to touch real quick, I’m super pumped about the pictures to add to the dealer condition report because I use the dealer condition report probably 90% of appraisals that I do and I show people and that’s how I justify my number to them. What we do is I give them the number, they go over, they work their deal, they come back over and then they say the exactly what you just said.

“They gave them X amount of money down the street, we got to step up, blah, blah, blah.” 

And that’s at that point, that’s when I print off the dealer condition report and I go over and I see the customer. I click into my target retail and I show them that there’s 45 of these other vehicles in Canada for sale. These are the kilometers, these are the average days on market, average prices.

Now, I always tell them if they’re all selling for $10,000 I want to sell mine for nine because I want to sell it quicker than all these other, and it’s at that, that point that it really takes all the focus off the salesman. I’m sort of technically the bad guy in the consumer’s eyes. And then after I kind of justify my number and show them actual factual data out there that I can print off and show them it kind of defuses the situation and you put the realism into the deal. 

Bob Hollenshead: I love it.

And here’s the thing, my friend, when you add the pictures of the dent and scratch since you walked around and outside and all of a sudden everybody caught amnesia when they walk back inside and they’re actually looking at the dent and the scratch, right on what I call, the used car invoice where you don’t have to hide the retail and all the rest of it, right? Because it only shows what the insurance company has enabled you to allow them for the car. 

It kinda like emasculates the concept of the salesman jumping up and racing over to say whatever nonsensical bullshit that they tell you to weld the dealership into the trade. You follow me?

So that’s, that’s one piece. But here’s what I’ve found when the, when the, when the salesperson is actually involved in not asking for more money but could be paid a commission when you do push that vehicle, because he went out, took wonderful pictures, treated the car for what it was supposed to be traded for, and now you push it right to trade rev and the corn knocks off 2,500. Could you imagine the thrill that the salesman would get if he got a 10% commission on the difference? She’ll never have to ask the salesperson than not. They ask for more money again. You follow? 

Jared Hicks: Yeah, I do follow you, but I’d never do that. I, I got certain targets and stuff to meet on my end well and, and, and yeah, they, they make enough money on retail as it is. I wouldn’t ever give any spendage of my wholesale. That’s, that’s how I get paid bonuses and stuff like that. So their incentive to retail that car to make the commission on the growth that that’s in that car. And then wholesale, I mean that’s kinda just the dealers sort of hidden. 

Robert Hollenshead: So they don’t get exposed to how much that car brings on TradeRev then? 

Jared Hicks: No. They don’t have, they don’t see it, they don’t know about it.

Robert Hollenshead: Okay, and it’s not like whispered in the showroom what the car brought on? Okay. 

Jared Hicks: No one needs to know about it except for me. , it’s no wonder for me. So when someone just says, where’s that car? I just say it’s sold and they say how much? I said, the car is sold, boys move on.

And that, that’s sort of just the end of that conversation. And maybe, I mean, maybe I’m doing it wrong, maybe I’m doing it right. 

Robert Hollenshead: I don’t think you’re doing it wrong. Listen, if it’s working for you brother, you’re definitely doing it right. 

Jared Hicks: Yeah. And I just find whenever someone, the person that’s signing your checks kinda tells you to lean one way and do something I’m on, you know, you normally do it.

Robert Hollenshead: That’s, that’s why you’re the boss pal.. At 27 years old. You know what I mean? If you weren’t outthinking them, you’re going to get outhunk outside the doorway. You know what I mean? 

Jared Hicks: Yeah. I don’t get me wrong, I mean, I’m, I’m a quick learner and I take a passion what I do, there’s a reason I’m in the position a minute at such a young age is because I live and breathe this shit every single day. I mean, every day.

Robert Hollenshead: I understand it perfectly son. I’ve been doing it since 1972 and the tool that hopefully is doing you some good is basically all of the things that we’ve gleaned through our entire career packed into software to enable folks like yourself of a second or third generation behind to have, I would call it the pedigree of what we’ve learned over, you know, 30 million buys, sells, trades and pricing. Of course you follow me? So there’s a lot of nuance that, do you use the common problem thing at all?

Jared Hicks: I do. I do. I use it not so much on Toyota, Honda, Subaru, not as much as. And it’s because, I mean, anything that comes in with 200,000 kilometers on common problems, I mean, that’s, that’s a given. Nine out of 10 consumers coming in would agree with you on that. Obviously you have the, the big heads that don’t get it and they never have, they never will. I use it more on Ford and Dodge. A lot of the head gaskets in Subaru are going back to Subaru. The only problems that I’ve, I’ve come across is his head gaskets and it’s nice to know that when I print off my consumer report it says, I’m not saying there’s anything wrong with your head gasket, but it is known factual, known that head gaskets go around 120,000 kilometers in Subarus. You have a hundred and fifty thousand kilometers on your car.

Robert Hollenshead: Friend listen, actually listen to this and the consumer knows it too cause it already happened to them. You follow me now what that does for you? One of the main reasons why we like you, you know users like yourself to be able to refer to it. We didn’t guess when we put that there, if I’ve sold, you know, 300,000 Subarus, there’s a strong high probability of 50% or more that that car has that particular issue. What it really does is it helps the consumer understand that you’re smart, you follow me? You see what I’m saying? In other words, it’s to Edify the user on a, you know, whatever…  Some goofball car that you see once a year, and you bring the topic up potentially depending on the conversation drifts, right. Where when those little inferences pop in instantaneously as subliminally the consumer recognizes they’re not dealing with a novice.

Robert Hollenshead: You see what I’m saying at the, yeah, I know. Exactly. It’s very, very helpful. The other thing is, you know, in New Brunswick, I’m guessing that 30% of the cars that you trade have some sort of a Carfax issue. Would that sound right?

Jared Hicks: 30% I would say.

Robert Hollenshead: Yeah. Okay. And, and everybody has a fart in their head in terms of what they believe the diminished value associated with the incident is, right. The fact that we quantify it, I think helps also, you know, the consumer could say, wow, you know, I, that that accident was two years ago. It didn’t have any effect on the car. No, no sir. You’re absolutely correct. Unfortunately, because we have to be transparent sell in the car. It definitely does have, you know, if we were selling you one with a bad Carfax.

Jared Hicks: Well, not to cut you off, but my, my the best line I got and I use it 100% of the time in the, in that 30% of Carfax conversations is I always put it back on the customer. I look at them and say if you were buying a $25,000 used car, would you want it to be in an accident that caused $7,000 worth of damage? Would you pay the same amount of money for a car that has seven grand Carfax to one that doesn’t?  And nine times out of 10 they go, no I wouldn’t. And it kind of just goes exactly. So it does have an effect. I just, I just wanted, I know that the selling side is mostly what we’re talking about, but I just want to talk about the buying side of Accu-Trade because obviously with winter months numbers are down. I, I need to continue to fill my lot now.

Obviously when I’m looking at online auctions, I buy off of TradeRev, I buy off of eBlock, I buy from live auctions and I use Accu-trade, and it’s great. And the, the one thing I really like about it is it shows you your target trade, your target auction, your target retail. And it is right. So I have a 17 Highlander XLE pulled up and it’s saying if I wanted to sell this within 30 days to put it on for $28,800. Now, it’s also saying the median price of this car is going for $32,900 with X amount of kilometers. So I know in my head, and it’s not, I mean it’s, it’s not a snaky to do to people to say. I’m not lying. If I want to sell this car in 30 days, I put it off for $28,800 and it sells.  Well that’s my decision if I want to do it.

Robert Hollenshead: 100 percent, you’re absolutely correct. That’s the whole point there, Jared. And here’s the other thing, when you’re actually pricing the car and you did certify, you do push the certified button, correct?

Jared Hicks: Sure, absolutely. 

Robert Hollenshead: Yeah. Because it really does increase like on that $25,000 car at 15 or 1800 bucks because you can’t price your car that’s certified to a car that a used car dealer has that’s not certified. This is the fallacious newness of, of the Vauto concept, right? Where you push your price in a good one to a bad one and thinking somehow or other you did the right thing or vice versa. You can’t price a bad one to a good one and assume you’re going to sell that car anytime soon unless you find the one idiot in New Brunswick that’s willing do that. Right. But that’s not a business model that you could actually follow. That’s the philosophical side of that from our standpoint. You know what I mean?

Logan Keirstead: So you were talking about how you’re using the tool to buy online.

Jared Hicks: So I mean it’s, it’s super tough. I mean, especially with most, most stuff online and at live auctions, it’s a lot of rental cars. I mean, you got, you got your efforts and it’s a lot of rental cars. A lot of, I don’t like buying from them for two reasons. One, everyone that’s driven that car has driven to like they freaking stole it. They all need tires and brakes when they’re done with it. And, and to be honest with you, rental companies want borderline retail numbers there and they don’t move on their number and you know what power to them because they’re obviously moving their cars and making money. But for me, when I see if I’m in a tight bind, I need this car, I want a car for my lot, it’s telling me to pay 22 grand. It’s saying that the average retail after recon is 28 but then you look in the medien and it’s a couple grand more. I dive into it. I look how close is the closest one to me. So this one’s at Patterson Toyota, you know, that’s only 700 kilometers away. Everything else is Quebec and Ontario. So I know those numbers are in there and perfect. That’s why it’s spitting up the algorithm and telling you the median price. Well, you know what it is. If I put mine $1,000 more, then the closest one to me in Ontario, is someone going to drive to Ontario for $1,000 less for a car? Probably not.

Robert Hollenshead: That’s ridiculous. No. 

Jared Hicks: You know what I mean? So you can, you can use the app two ways. You can, you can use it and just not really dive into stuff. Use your numbers in that sense. But if you’re, I mean for buying, if you really want to buy, you just, you’ve really got to look at the market. 

You can look at how far cars are away, what they’re selling for. Is there one car in there that’s kind of skewing the algorithm up? Maybe they put 100,000 instead of 10,000 by mistake. You know what I mean? You really, that’s why I love it because it’s all right here and it’s accessible that I can print this page out that I’m staring at and look at my customer that’s saying I want 25,000 for this. And I say, but they’re selling for 22 and they go, well, no they’re not, I see them out there. I print this off and put it in their face and go, this is what you’re seeing out there. Not to call your bluff, but here’s your bluff.

Robert Hollenshead: Right? What you’re doing son, is you’re, you’re figuring the various use cases, that is precisely what we designed it to be. It’s not a single, one thing for everybody type of thing. It’s, it’s, it’s able to be used from the service department, just as an edification tool for a consumer so they can get their mind into the realm of what things actually really are and why that is. You follow me? Theoretically if it’s helpful as a closing tool, actually accomplished what we designed it for. And again, you know, we have every intention of enabling other dealers to list and where other Accu-trade users will be able to buy. You would theoretically be able to buy and sell in our next iteration. That iteration is going live on Friday in the US, where anybody that wants to sell you can push directly into a marketplace that all other Accu-trade users will be able to buy.

It’s kinda like what we would call a country club type circumstance. The beauty of this is that I think is a little bit different than any other kind of marketplace is the fact that, two things. 

One, you can have a third party, in your case it would be The Great Northern Auction handle title check and arbitration in the case that you don’t really want to take a cheque from somebody, you don’t know who it is, you follow me. But two, you can actually develop your own network of, you know, exporters’ or your own network of used car dealers that buy trash cans or whatever it might be for that matter. You could share with other Toyota or Lexus dealers Certified Cars that you can’t sell for market price, that you have to get more. The dealer actually understands that they’re getting a car that actually is certified, ain’t going to cost them nothing to put it on the front line. High probability you could swap cars with someone else in the same circumstance, with the same category of car. You see what I’m saying to you?

Jared Hicks: Just to tell you a little story on how I think this is gonna transition and I, I’m doing that myself, except I’m not doing it through Accu-trade. I’m doing it on my own. I’ve been blind calling dealers for one to buy their cars and then I make a connection with them by a couple of older aged inventories. Help them out and in return. Yeah. And in return, I, I tell them, I say, listen, the next time you’re appraising a car like this, and obviously you’re having trouble selling this type of car in your market. I said, this is a top selling car in my market.

So next time someone comes in and you’re appraising this, call me and I’ll appraise it from my desk and you can use my money, to make your deal. You follow me, you’re following me along.

Robert Hollenshead: That’s what we’ve been doing all along the lines. 

Jared Hicks: It’s more or less the exact same thing, except instead of me blind calling these dealers, I can have them, we’ll all share condition report with them via Accu-trade. And kind of do it that way. 

Robert Hollenshead: That’s exactly what the intent is, my friend. You’re going to be able to do it by adding them to your, let’s call it your Rolodex, right? And as you don’t want to add them, you can take them out as you want to add more, you can add more in. So theoretically, you’ll have a micro marketplace, that bypasses, let’s call it the traditional marketplace where everybody’s paying $500 in fees going back and forth. You see what I’m saying? So how frequently is it the $500 that keeps a buyer and a seller away from actually transacting? You see what I’m saying to you? That’s a lot… it’s a lot brother….

Jared Hicks: I deal with that every day because what I’m trying to buy a car on these sites, I got to remember, okay, well there’s $125 transaction fee. There’s a $500 shipping fee, and then there’s this fee, and then I put, I put a fee of five, I put a $600 fee on every one of my cars when it comes in, I call it every dealer does it, a call it a documentation fee. So before I even get a car on my lot on $1,200 deep in fees, you know, you know what I’m saying?

Robert Hollenshead: Absolutely. Yup. 

Jared Hicks: And I mean does, does $1,200. $1,200 is definitely an enough amount of money to keep me away from making a deal or not making a deal.

Robert Hollenshead: There’s no doubt about it, it is zero question about it. If you’re going to be competitive, there’s no question about it.

Well, very nice conversation my friend. If there’s anything we can ever do for you, obviously you can contact Logan or Sean or myself anytime.

Jared Hicks: I’m excited to for the next couple of months to see what you guys are, are going to be kind of creating and sharing and kind of evolving into obviously the next step of Accu-trade.

Robert Hollenshead: Let me ask you a question slash favor. Would you be willing to do an interview to be on the Canadian Accu-trade site?

Jared Hicks: Yeah. 

Robert Hollenshead: As a, you know, a testimonial basically? 

Jared Hicks: Yeah. Yeah. 

Robert Hollenshead: Okay, so I think we’ll have somebody reach out sometime soon. Our new site is going out, it’s going to be about three weeks out. And when it does, you know, we’d like to have some success stories with people that are genuinely getting a significant benefit from what we built. I’d greatly appreciate that if you were able to do it. We’re not asking you to say anything that isn’t true or exaggerate or do whatever. But basically,

Jared Hicks: My phone’s always, my phone’s always open for conversations and I’m not a bullshitter. I call a spade a spade. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t be saying this stuff to you guys if it wasn’t working. And I was completely honest with VAuto when I had to pretty much fire them. I ended up having to do three different, I mean I felt like I was at with the regional manager and then after they couldn’t get me to stay on, I went to the national manager. Then I ended up in a meeting with someone that did the North American V auto. And it just, I, I just like, I call it the way I see it and I would never lie or exaggerate or anything. And we’ve had great success with this and I don’t mind giving feedback.

Robert Hollenshead: I appreciate it. My friend, it’s a, it’s a

Jared Hicks: I switched our, we had where we got, we got to Toyota, Lexus, Volkswagen and Mitsubishi, in Saint John, our owner has a hand in all of them and we’ve switched all of them over and everyone seems to be doing successful and, and not, you know, burying themselves in cars, and the numbers are right and everyone’s selling. So I mean, I tell em, I tell everyone that I know that if you don’t at least give this thing a try, I mean you’re not looking to improve your business.

Robert Hollenshead: Have you had any conversation with your TradeRev rep?

Jared Hicks: Yeah. Daily. 

Robert Hollenshead: And what kind of feedback did they give you when you say what your process is using our tool and push into theirs?

Jared Hicks: Surprised, and then, I mean, this was more so at the beginning of me using TradeRev because I’ve been so successful with TradeRev now that they don’t really question it. They’re excited about it and they, I tell them to tell everyone about it. They always say, Oh yeah, just look on your Vauto. And I tell them, I say, listen, Vauto to me is like Eblock to TradeRev. It’s, it’s a competition. And I have picked one over the other and I’m faithful to one over the other. So when someone says, you know, when I’m talking to a TradeRev rep and someone says Eblock, they always get a weird look in their face. Well, the same look is on my face when someone says Vauto and I look at them and I say, you’re frigging out to lunch if you’re still on the Vauto train.

Robert Hollenshead: That’s interesting. So you find that in your vicinity, that TradeRev is much better than Eblock?

Jared Hicks: I, it’s, it’s tough, it’s, it’s weird to be honest with you. It’s super weird, Bob. I mean I get more results on TradeRev. I’ve, I sell more units. It’s less hassle.

Robert Hollenshead: So when you say hassle… Them, calling you back, would you take 200 more? Would you give 600 less?

Jared Hicks: Not so much that it’s, it’s, it’s more when I post the, they only run their auctions like Tuesdays and Thursdays where TradeRev is every hour of the day. It’s just more instantaneous. I’ve built more of a connection with my reps with TradeRev rather than E block. They treat me better. I trust them more.

Robert Hollenshead: How do you do with arbitration on TradeRev, friend?

Jared Hicks: I’ve been arbitrated a bunch of times. Never had to pay anything because for one I just, I disclose every single scratch, nook, and cranny. I don’t, I don’t cheap out or try to hide something. I show what it is, and then vice versa when I buy. So I have arbitrated a few things and it just, you make a claim, the day comes in, I do a nice walk around and if something is. I did find out recently that if it’s not over $750 worth of damage or, repair that you can’t arbitrate it. So if it comes in and it’s got a couple of scratches and dings that, that I didn’t see on and I go, well it is what it is. It’s what you get buying online. But if it comes in with, you know, a panel missing or no tires or something extreme like that, I just make a claim and, and they’ve been pretty good with it so far.

Robert Hollenshead: That’s good. Can’t beat that with a stick. I’m glad to know that.

Jared Hicks: Yeah, and I did. To be honest with you, it probably goes back to just the relationship I have with TradeRev.

Interested in learning more about how dealers are using Accu-Trade?Contact LOGAN anytime | TEXT: 506.874.7355 | Logan@accu-trade.ca