It’s official, seems impossible, but officially we have the
wildest line up of all time. The amount
of ass kissing we have cumulatively done to pinch this batch of merch for you,
the buyer, more than likely will turn up in the Guinness Book of World Records
under the heading of “most amount of ass kissing ever recorded to bring the
fattest group of cars and trucks ever offered at one time in one place by one seller
on one day…ever (and they been keeping records since before Warren Young,
founder of Manheim, was in Manheim, that’s a few seconds before God created
earth).
Friday is shaping up to be a car show/sale like no
other. We will have 800 units. There will be more Lexus than any auction in
the country…and some amazing merch.
There is 100 Mercedes, every one of them, a trade. There will be 100 BMWs, spectacular line-up,
all trades and no made-up lease return Hogs that flunked the shop. There are
100 Toyotas of every variety, and 80 Honda/Acuras the same…all trades, no lease
return lumps. There are also a nice
group of Nissans and Infinitys, once again, every one of them a trade.
There are 250 Domestics, 30 Caddys, 20 Escalades. 15 Yukons/Tahoes, 3 Conversion Vans…and good
ones. Hummers, Vettes, Mustang GTs, Camaros,
Ford Trucks that include some whacky diesels and 30 Jeeps of all kinds. There
are a pile of super low-mid mile sellable 2006-09 cars and trucks that you
simply can’t find anyplace, we got them.
Lane 24, which will
have 550 units, starts at 9AM and will run to 4PM (why are you stuck in the end
of the building which is completely over by 11:30 you ask? I have no answer other than they want me to
open my own auction (and we obviously
got the cars to do just that)).
Lane 23 will BEGIN at 1PM in the afternoon(?) and
we will have spectacular domestics in the mid to lower price range (so you ask
why would you be stuck at the end of the building where there are no domestic
buyers and at a time of the day when all buyers have gone home? My only answer is because it is completely
illogical, unfair and proof they have a reason to see if we can be baited into
opening our own auction (and we obviously got the cars to do just that…silly).
Lane 6 will start
at 12:30, after everybody has finished up for the day including re-runs even
though if you added up all the cars sold from lane 9 down to lane 1 won’t sell half
of what we will sell for the day IN TOTAL.
Unfair you say? More like insanity as many of you have stated
to me. Seems as though the largest
volume car dealer in the history of the wholesale world would get a bit better numbers after selling more cars than any combination of sellers in auction
history.
But, not so.
Now, the undeniable, unbelievable fact that we have no respectable
numbers to sell them, impossible as it may seem to anyone that pays attention
and is actually in our business, will not stop us from defying logic, Nature, and the Laws of the Wholesale God that rules
our world. They will all, as in ALL, be sold
(as usual).
The most comical part of the number picture is “rep services”
illegal attempt to sell other peoples cars (as illegal as robbing a bank and punishable on each count by a jail
term, but condoned for years, stone cold illegal for the repper, the dealer,
and the auction that allows it to happen).
You see, in Pennsylvania you must be an employee of the dealership with
a salesman’s license to sell a car, wholesale or retail, there is no distinction
and no exceptions…it’s the law and always has been, but it’s overlooked and “reppers” are awarded numbers with the no skin in the game, 30% selling
service, getting ocean front numbers which chews up the best space in the sale.
In my humble opinion
this practice has gotten us to where we see it is acceptable to sell a very
low, half of what it used to be, conversion rate percentage. Warren Young wouldn't even give you numbers
if your sales rate was 65% let alone 25%. Allowing this is intravenous injection of cancer into the
auction business is terminal.
"Repping" started when
folks that couldn't compete on the street figured they could kiss ass or do
tricks with auction personnel to get numbers and find dealers to “pimp” the numbers to and
act like a dealer, it has morphed into institutionalized, acceptable, mediocrity. Now three generations deep from an auction
management standpoint, it is accepted as normal and justifiable to overlook the
law and the professionals dedicated to the industry.
Buying from a rep service is like going to a guy with a pair
of scissors that claims to be a
surgeon. Just can’t make it in
school. Might not even know left from
right. And when he screws up the surgery,
cuts off your left nut, not a corn on your left father toe, he claims innocence based on ignorance, not
his fault, don’t look at me. But the
effect of that rubs off on the legitimate surgeon. Now he has to overcome the stigma of the fake…and
in this case the fake is given much better placement in the sale. How’s that make you feel? If you don’t have a pucker in your back end,
you ain’t never been on the block with your balls on the line. And you ain’t never answered the silly
questions that rep services have invented from a buyer,” what would you really
take for that car?” When the answer is,
I don’t know, let me call the owner, that
is an injection of AIDS directly in the neck of the auction.
You don’t get
it? Don’t worry. You and policy makers at auctions are in the
same boat. You got company. It doesn't make you bad, I’m sure you are
good, just means you don’t get what causes an auction be an auction. It is one
of the purest, most beautiful forms of capitalism that has ever been practiced. In
other words It frustrates the dealer that gives us the respect of getting up a
3AM, driving or flying to the sale, stomping the 200 acres to see what we have
to offer and then get jerked off in the lane.
Why would dealers repeat that?
The answer is, they won’t. They
don’t need to and can’t afford to.
We sell, and always have sold, 95% of what we bring. That don’t make us good,
but it does mean we do understand what makes an auction tick…and love ever
second of it. The other 5% gets sold on
the street that day. If you ain’t
selling in the 90s in my opinion you are looking for too much, don’t understand
an auction, or you don’t own the car and there ain’t no pain in a no-sale. When you own the bitch with your cash (not
OPM, other people’s money) it gives you a funny feeling in the middle of your
ass, uncomfortable, very uncomfortable, one that you will try harder to get
your merch ready better so you don’t experience it again. It makes you jump out of bed hours before a
person with a job. It causes you to be neurotic
about how your cars look, where they are parked and who is climbing in and out
of them kicking the rocker panel with their shoes. It makes you ignore emergency phone calls
from loved ones cause you still have cars that got to get corralled, cleaned
and primped. It makes you fly off the
handle when it don’t come on the block in order or some nit-wit took it for a
spin. If you haven’t experienced this,
you probably don’t understand, however, you might be the person making up the
auction lay-out with no understanding of what happens on the parade ground
before, or on the block when the hammer hits the podium.
None of the above happens when a “rep” service goes to the
sale. That is exactly why it is critical
for the health of the auction industry that the owner of the unit, skin in
game, balls in mouth, is selling the bitch.
The energy level is different.
The testosterone is present. Mr. Nice
guy got left at home. A car dealer is in
the room and SURPRISE, SURPRISE, AN AUCTION BREAKS OUT.
Trying to explain
this to a person with a job is like talking Chinese. And the louder you talk the less they
understand. And in fact because now that
you are talking loud makes them mad because you are rude. No, No, No, not rude, you took it wrong, it’s
frustration pouring out of the pours.
When you love the business and you watch it disintegrate in front of
your eyes, and are disrespected with simpleton numbers, it is painful so you want to help because it is so simple to
fix. But nobody can listen because they
don’t understand the language. Such a
pity. So simple to fix. How great it could be again.
The bull shit that the auction is not going
to be here is preached by folks that never were in the business, don’t
understand they Dick and Jane fundamentals and as with anything you don’t
understand, you fear it and the reaction to fear is rejection and the rejection
leads us to “solutions” that are disastrous.
The solutions are guarantees that one after the other, they are nails in
the auction coffin. So sad. What percentage does any on-line “solution”
sell? If you told the truth and you were
looking for venture capital to fund it, they would laugh you straight out of the
room, tail correctly placed between legs.
As our history shows as clear as a Swarovski crystal, we
sell more units at a higher conversion rate than any tiny seller that sells 5-60
cars, once in a while (but not for 52 weeks a year decade after decade after
decade…at the same place…regardless of holidays, weather, political calamities,
change of management, heart attacks (transplants), gout attacks, new policies
that fall out of the sky without vetting them with the people that make the
auction… US, the dealer body… that have made the auction what it is, regardless
of any twisted interpretation of facts) that are place in lanes that are
oceanfront, while we are placed in industrial wasteland.
All this off my chest for today, meka noma stecka Jecka we
will be fired up and ripping Friday morning, piss pour, pathetic numbers and
all. Numbers that a first day on the job
retard with a job repping cars would never except ( Oh, I forgot, they get
prime numbers, excuse me. I was night
dreaming)or get offered.
So get comfortable,
do your research (as you know we mark all Car Fax issues as a “Caution on Car
Fax” on every unit to help you speed up research. I also group them together to make sure
everybody know we ain’t about tricking people and we understand there is an ass
for every seat. We aren’t looking to “rep”
chicken shit for chicken salad. It may
be OK for a “rep” service to schmeak somebody and earn a hunge, but I ain’t
interested. All our Caution on Car Fax units
hit the block in a group. They are
clearly marked. I know what it’s like as
a new car dealer with the “Car False” issue.
I am not looking to get you fired.
We try to make your job a bit easier.
After all, there is enough trickery in our world as it is, let this be
one less possibility. Make sure the
people at home or in the showroom know that you are participating in an
Historical event. Tell them to leave
your ass alone.
Robert
Hollenshead
Founder and
President
R. Hollenshead Auto Sales Inc.
1373 Lancaster
Road - Manheim, PA 17545