On today’s show, we continue our conversation with Grant Cardone, world-renown business mogul, international influencer, and real-estate tycoon with $1.4 billion AUM. He is also the New York Times best-selling author of Sell or Be Sold and The 10X Rule, as well as the founder of the 10X Growth Conference which will hold its annual event this February 21-23 in Las Vegas.
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Jim Fitzpatrick: Hey, everyone. Jim Fitzpatrick on the CBT Automotive Network. We’re so happy to have with us today the one and only, Mr. Grant Cardone. I know that you know this face and you know this man. He has been around the industry for the last 30 years helping dealers, large and small, move more iron off their showroom floors. Grant, thank you so much for taking the time out of your extremely busy schedule to spend with us here at CBT News.
Grant Cardone: Buddy, always good to be with you. We just had a hundred dealers down here in Miami at our school. Just opened a school down here because so many people were like, “Hey, we want to spend time there. We want to come see your environment, want to come see the culture that you built, that people are very interested in this 10X movement.”
Jim Fitzpatrick: Sure. Yeah. There’s no question. Some of those things that we want to talk to you about today in fact. So how important is it for salespeople to promote themselves individually on social media? I mean, I know what social media has done for you and your business. A, is it okay if salespeople do that, if you’re a dealer? And then B, should every salesperson out there that’s in the auto industry be promoting themselves through social media?
Grant Cardone: So why wouldn’t you want a salesperson to be on Facebook and Instagram? The whole world’s there. It’s free. It’s free. It’s a damn dream come true. Free, no regulation, I can post as much as I want. It probably won’t stop me. I can say I’m the best. I can say I’m the cheapest. I can say I can get you approved. I can say it with no money down and I can do it as much as I want and it doesn’t cost me anything.
Jim Fitzpatrick: So if it was Grant Cardone Motors today, every one of your salespeople, you’d make it mandatory that they’ve got a social presence.
Grant Cardone: When I go online, I show my guys’ stuff. I want my people to become superstars. I want my people to have a social media following. People buy from people they know.
Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s right.
Grant Cardone: They don’t know me. I went to the governor’s mansion the other night. He don’t know me. I walked away, I’m like, that’s stupid of me to come here. Why am I going to come here? He don’t even know me. The fact that I know him is less important than the fact that he doesn’t know me.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Right.
Grant Cardone: If people don’t know you, they’re not going to flow you attention and power.
Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s right.
Grant Cardone: They’re not going to give you attention. They’re not going to pay attention to you. He doesn’t even know how much I can help him because he doesn’t know me.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Right.
Grant Cardone: It doesn’t matter if you’re the best car dealer in the world. It doesn’t matter if you have the best product. It doesn’t matter if you have the best salesman. It doesn’t matter if have the best managers, the best service, the lowest price, the best terms. If I don’t know you, I’m not going to do business with you just because you’ve been there 35 years. It doesn’t mean I know you.
Grant Cardone: And you’re in competition with everybody today, not just car dealers. You’re in competition with the fact that we had impeachment. That’s all that’s on social media today. The stock market goes up or down, you’re in competition with that. We go to war again, you’re in competition with that. Bond market goes up or down, you’re in competition with that. You’re in competition with everything today.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Right. You got to make noise.
Grant Cardone: Attention, attention is the key. Number one, promote.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Let me ask you a question. If you’re going to buy a dealership today, what would your compensation look like for your salespeople? Would it be a hundred percent commission? Would it be salary and some commission? What… There’s some discussion out there that some dealerships have moved over.
Grant Cardone: You got to pay people.
Jim Fitzpatrick: What’s that?
Grant Cardone: You got to pay people.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Right.
Grant Cardone: The commission thing should be based on volume, bonuses based on volume, probably given every quarter. I wouldn’t pay people a bonus every month.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Could we get better people into the industry if we guaranteed them 40, 50 grand a year?
Grant Cardone: You’re never going to get good people if that’s all you’re talking about.
Jim Fitzpatrick: But I mean with an opportunity to make bonus plateaus or what have you over that. One of the big complaints-
Grant Cardone: Imagine at the NFL, if the NFL offered people 50 grand a year. Why are people willing to bang their bodies up?
Jim Fitzpatrick: Right.
Grant Cardone: Because it could be 50 million a year.
Jim Fitzpatrick: So what’s a decent compensation for salespeople today?
Grant Cardone: I mean, it depends on where you live. I’m in Miami. I pay people $80,000 a year to answer phones in here. You want to work for Grant Cardone for 80 grand or you want to work for a car dealer for 40? People, man, it’s a people game. If the dealer is so cheap that he won’t pay people, guess what? You’re going to be complaining about people forever. You’re cheap because you don’t spend money. You don’t have time and money because you don’t spend time and money.
Grant Cardone: The dealers that are winning are the ones that spend time and money. They invest time and money, okay? They buy the best locations. They buy all the ad time. They’re willing to take risks. If you’re not going to take risks, you’re going to be out of business. The risk today is not to take risks. So the way to reduce the risk is to risk. You got dealers that got more money offshore than they got in their business today. What are you doing, dude? You’re planning for an exit.
Jim Fitzpatrick: That’s right.
Grant Cardone: You’ve got more money in a retirement account than you do your people. We spend $1 million a month on Facebook ads here. I know dealers… There was a dealer with me yesterday. He’s like, “I spend a hundred grand a month, dude.” He says, “You spend $1 million?” He’s like, “I got 400 pieces of new inventory. What’s your inventory?” I said, “I don’t have any inventory. All my inventory is digital and I outspend you by 10 times.”
Jim Fitzpatrick: Wow. And it’s a people game, right? You got-
Grant Cardone: You want people to know you. You want to be the last car dealer left in your city. Because there’s another cut coming.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Oh yeah.
Grant Cardone: There’s no question.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Absolutely.
Grant Cardone: There will not be 20,000 car dealers in the next decade. The end of 20… What is it, 2029, 10 years from now? There will not be 20,000 car dealers in America.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Right.
Grant Cardone: So you want to be the last one. You want to be the last one for your legacy. There’s going to be a continued consolidation. We know the marketplace is going to continue to change. Unfortunately, the dealers won’t even listen to this message, you know? So here’s the deal for me. At my age, I’m either going to get better in the next decade or I’m going to get worse, but I’m not going to stay the same. I’m either going to get bigger or I’m going to get smaller, but I can’t stay the same.
Jim Fitzpatrick: And you’re going to get bigger. That’s your decision, right?
Grant Cardone: Or I’m going to die, dog, I’m going to die trying. You know if they say go big or-
Jim Fitzpatrick: Go home.
Grant Cardone: No, go big or go bigger.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Go big or go bigger. There you go. That’s a great one. Hey, before we let you leave on this segment, talk to us about the 10X Conference. When is it? What’s happening at it? I mean, those things have turned out to be huge events, right?
Grant Cardone: Yeah. We do an annual conference. It’s called 10X Growth Conference. This year, Kevin Hart, Magic Johnson, the guy that ran all the Trump’s Facebook ads.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Wow.
Grant Cardone: Scooter Braun that stole Taylor Swift’s career, Marie Forleo, my wife will be there, Rick Ross will be there to do entertainment. I’m having Usher Saturday afternoon. Snoop Dogg’s going to be there.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Wow.
Grant Cardone: It’s freaking insane. I’ve got about $6 million invested in this event.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Oh my God.
Grant Cardone: Without a doubt, it is the largest, most talked about entrepreneur conference on planet Earth today. We’ve only done three of these and literally took over the whole space with the three we did.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Right, right. Yeah. You did-
Grant Cardone: I’ll be in Vegas this year. February 20th. Tickets are 495 to 15 grand.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Okay.
Grant Cardone: 15 grand gets you everything.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Gets you a little bit of time with Uncle G.
Grant Cardone: Uncle G. To spend some time with Uncle G, Kevin Hart. You get to size us up, see who’s shorter. He is. He’s shorter and darker, but we both rich and we both funny.
Jim Fitzpatrick: There you go.
Grant Cardone: And then there’ll be Magic Johnson. I’ll get Magic in there. Magic’s a big real estate guy. I mean, that guy’s got a freaking unbelievable story about… His business career’s been… And in transition. See, these are the kind of things I would suggest that car dealers and general managers to go to. One thing that has helped me more than anything is getting outside of the industry I grew up in. My growth outside the auto business helped me inside the auto business.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Yeah.
Grant Cardone: There’s just ideas outside the car business that are actually-
Jim Fitzpatrick: That we can learn from, right?
Grant Cardone: Yeah. The one thing I would end with is there’s nobody in a business. This is all about people. If you want more money, you want more success, you got to get people to know you. And however you do that, this conference is a great way. I have dealers that I know for sure are going that are going there just to recruit people.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Oh, that’s a good technique or idea.
Grant Cardone: I got a guy that’s got 20 stores and he thinks he’s going to buy another eight stores this year and he’s going just to recruit GMs.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Wow.
Grant Cardone: He does not necessarily want automotive talent.
Jim Fitzpatrick: He just wants people with the right mindset to be a winner, to be successful.
Grant Cardone: He wants people that think the way I did.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Right.
Grant Cardone: He wants freaks.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Right. Freaks.
Grant Cardone: He wants noisemakers and disruptors.
Jim Fitzpatrick: If you had one piece of advice to leave dealers with today, the dealer principal, that are listening right-
Grant Cardone: Get back to selling cars.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Get back to selling cars.
Grant Cardone: Get back to selling cars, getting somebody to take your car, okay? This isn’t about Joe or Grant’s universe like, “Oh, you got to go through the meet and greet. You got to qualify.” You don’t have to do any of that stuff today. You need to find somebody that wants a car, bring the car to them, and figure out what it takes to buy the car.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Wow.
Grant Cardone: I had a hundred people in my classroom two days… Yesterday? I just went back there, “Start giving me phone numbers, guys. Give me a phone number of anybody that’s been in your store this week.” I just started calling people, “Hey, why didn’t you buy the car from us?” “Because of this and that.” “When can I bring it back to you and fix that?”
Jim Fitzpatrick: Right.
Grant Cardone: And the people in the room were like, “Whoa,” like man, they hadn’t seen this. You don’t need to train people first. You need to show them first.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Right.
Grant Cardone: That it can be done, that selling cars is not over because of all this social media and because of some of the other players that you mentioned and some of the changes and some of the industry disruptions. None of that’s going to change. If you guys just deliver cars, get back to delivering cars. You don’t need to worry about Carvana.
Jim Fitzpatrick: It’s that simple.
Grant Cardone: Keep the main thing, the main thing, bro.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Grant Cardone, the one and only, world-renowned serial entrepreneur. You guys know him in the car business for the last 30 years. I don’t know how much more inspiration you need, but the man is a living testament as to what the automobile business can mean to you. Whether you just started or whether you’re a dealer right now with 14 stores trying to get to 30, there’s the real deal right there. Thank you so much. Appreciate all your time.
Grant Cardone: You got it.
Jim Fitzpatrick: Thanks so much.
CBT Automotive Network, the number one most-watched network in retail automotive. This has been a JBF Business Media production.
