Pro Tips: Selling Your Truck or 4x4 with Chris Picconi & Brian Ellis (@classic4x4_trucks / classic4x4.com & @fourbieexchange / fourbie.com)

On this episode, Chris and Brian reconvene to discuss the do's, dont's and tips to successfully sell your collector classic, custom and modified trucks and 4x4s.  Buying a truck or 4x4 is fun, but selling one is not.  This episodes guides our listeners to understand what it takes to successfully sell a truck or 4x4.

Classic 4x4 handles every aspect of the sale of your classic, custom, and modified truck or 4x4. Your truck is prepared for sale, brought to market and sold, all while it sits in your garage.  We offer owners across the United States a faster, more efficient and affordable way to sell without the hassle.  Our team are experts in valuing, preparing, marketing and negotiating the sale, bringing you more money for your truck or 4x4. 

As a truck collector and restorer for over a decade, Chris has successfully represented the sale of countless trucks on behalf of our clients and his personal collection.  Fellow enthusiasts and collectors observed Chris strategically market and successfully sell countless trucks for his own collection, so they started asking him to sell their trucks and 4x4s.  As word spread and the requests grew, Chris expanded the Classic 4x4 brand from an enthusiast podcast to include classic, custom and modified truck and 4x4 marketing and advisory. 

Fourbie Exchange has changed the way enthusiasts buy and sell rare, custom and classic 4x4s and trucks.  Founded by three friends in 2021, Fourbie Exchange has become the premier marketplace offering enthusiasts curated and elevated rare, custom and classic 4x4 and truck classified listings and auctions.

Thank you Jeff Murphy ( @jeffmurphy2084 ) for requesting the topic for this episode!

Follow, Like and subscribe to the podcast on Instagram, Facebook, YouTube and your podcast listing platform. Check out our website at classic4x4.com and reach out if we can help you sell your classic, vintage or collector truck or 4x4. Thanks for listening!

Transcript

0:01

Well, hello, classic four by four podcast listeners. We have made it through to episode seven of our third season. And for all of you that have been listening so far this season, as you all know, this season is all about our listener requested guests and topics. So today's topic is one that is very close to my heart and something that I... Most people don't like doing, but I actually enjoy doing and have actually ended up expanding the classic four by four brand to encompass, which is selling classic custom and modified trucks in four by fours. So without further ado, I wanna introduce Brian Ellis from 4B Exchange. He was joined us many times before, but he has a great perspective being that 4B Exchange is the preeminent Classic, custom, modified, unique truck in four by four marketplace, not only for classifieds and auctions. He deals with a lot of sellers, so he's got a very unique perspective. So Brian, thanks for joining us again. Hey, thanks, man. Such a great pleasure to be back on the show. This is a great topic to really, really excited to begin talk to, my man. It's a, you know, we riff very well with each other and the listeners enjoy it. So I did actually get a listener request to hear more of Brian Ellis, right? It may have come from one of your co-partners, right? Yeah. me. It definitely wasn't my wife. Yeah. She's in time down. Yeah. but again, today's subject is how to sell a truck or four by four. So, as many of you know, I have actually broadened the classic four by four brand from not only just the podcast, don't worry everybody, we'll still record two seasons a year of the classic four by four podcast. you'll still hear my voice, whether you like it or not. And we're still gonna have amazing guests and amazing topics, right? But it's interesting is over the past, I'd say year or so, since I've been doing the podcast, a lot of listeners have listened to me talk about my own collection in acquiring trucks for my own collection, selling trucks for my own collection. And I've really taken note to how effectively and efficiently and successfully I've... I've sold trucks for my own collection. Cause the fact of the matter is buying a classic customer unique or modified truck or four by four is fun. It's a ton of fun. It's an adrenaline rush. I love doing it, but selling it is not so much fun. It takes a ton of time. It's aggravation. You got to deal with a lot of yahoos out there to say the least, but there's a strategy that goes behind it. And if you don't develop and execute a strategy that is appropriate for your specific truck. you're not gonna be successful and you're not gonna yield the highest sell price. So at Classic 4x4, we have decided to broaden our brand to encompass and work with clients to help to sell their Classic customer unique trucks. So we are now doing marketing advisory where basically we sell your truck for you while it's parked in your garage. So anybody out there that's interested in selling your Classic Custom modified truck or four by four. Check us out at classic four by four.com. Throw some details on your truck out there. I'll do an evaluation, do evaluation of the truck, reach back out to you. We'll have a conversation. If it makes sense, I'll handle every aspect of selling your classic customer unique truck or four by four. But that's enough of a plug for now. What we need to do is give credit where credit is due. There was a listener that requested this topic and I actually have a pretty interesting and story with this particular listener. So the listener that requested the topic on how to sell a truck or four by four is a gentleman that I've gotten to know pretty well who is a great, great person and very accomplished architect by the name of Jeff Miller. So if you don't know Jeff, you should follow him on all the social channels. It's Jeff. Bren rewind, I'm gonna have to do that again. The guy's name is Jeff Murphy, not Jeff Miller. All right, so. So Bren rewind back to where I say, check us out, submit your stuff on Classic 4x4, cut all this out, and then I'll start again. By the way, Brian, Bren's the producer. He's awesome, right? Yeah, I know, I know. Bren's the producer. He's listening to this right now. Yeah. So for today's topic on how to sell your truck or a four by four, that was requested by an amazing listener by the name of Jeff Murphy. If you have not, if you don't follow him on the social channels, check them out. His handle is at Jeff Murphy, two zero eight four. Jeff is not only an accomplished architect out of the twin cities, but he is the principal of his own architectural and design firm. But most importantly, awesome car and truck collection, classic car and truck collection. He's got some, some cool cars, some Porsches, but his trucks are, are really what I like. I want to talk about, uh, has an Omaha orange, uh, scout too, with a, uh, traveler, actually, with a, uh, anything scout LS driveability conversion and how I actually became, um, acquainted with Jeff is Jeff had actually reached out to me. because he has an awesome 19 or had at this point, an awesome 1967 Rover Series 2A 109 3-door, which was, I mean, just, impactful, awesome, amazing truck. And Jeff had actually asked me, he had taken note and had listened to me talk about how I sell my trucks and actually had reached out to me and said, hey, you know, you're an expert in the area. You seem to be, you have a very defined process. You seem to be very efficient, very effective. I don't have the time or the know-how. Can you help me sell your truck? So Jeff was actually one of the first people that I worked with that wasn't out of my own collection to sell their, successfully sell his 1967 Land Rover Series 2A 109. So this episode goes out to Jeff. Jeff, thank you for giving me that opportunity and also giving us something to talk about here on the Classic 4x4 Podcast. That is actually a rather timely and interesting topic. So... All right, Brian, let's go a little bit deeper into the process of in the, I'd say it's the best way to put it. It's not just a process, but there is a way to effectively efficiently market and sell a classic custom unique truck and four by four. And I want to walk through that. And that's what I want to, you know, enrich our listeners with in today's podcast. Before we go into that and all the different details, and the steps of the process. I wanna talk about something interesting, which is some of the biggest mistakes that we've ever seen sellers make when going out to market. So, and you running the preeminent classic custom, unique truck and four by four marketplace, you deal with a lot of sellers. So what are some of the mistakes you've seen the sellers make out there? You know, you've seen that line in every Craigslist and Facebook ad, right? No low balls, I know what I got. The reality is I think a lot of sellers don't always know what they want and they post up what they have. And, you know, it really takes that first step of just knowing the due diligence of what you're actually putting to market, right? What are your mods? What are the pros and cons? What's the backstory? What's your ownership history? What's the prior ownership history? So I think it really just starts with. kind of knowing what they have. And when we do that, when we see what the what the seller has brought to market, I mean, the value is there, right, you can you can really eke out that value properly. So I think having a really firm pulse of what you're bringing to market and what the market really looks like. And, you know, earlier, you were talking about valuations, we've trusted you for a long time on making sure we have the valuations just right with our sellers with the market is, is dictating and I think that's just really the critical first step. We deal with sellers of all sorts, right? New, used, rare, classic, custom. And I think that's the first step, right? Is just in kind of the differentiator of a good listing or a not so great listing is what do you even bring to market? Do you know what you have so that you can identify the right person? But we get all sorts of. of listings. I think we had an auction listing from I think Romania. You know, again, know what you have. It was a really cool Grand Cherokee, which I think that those Grand Cherokees are coming back in vogue those early generation ones. But our Romania market is not so strong. I hope that improves. But you just got to know what you have and where you're listing. That's that's the first step, right. And I'm sure you've seen too, because especially when you are the seller, it's your own truck. Trust me, we all love our own trucks, right? But coming to terms with what you actually have and the marketability, the marketability, the desirability within the different marketplaces is tough, right? We don't ever want to, nobody ever wants to admit their faults, especially us truck guys, where we don't want to admit the faults of any of our, you have to be real with yourself. And unfortunately we're subjective. which is again the value of bringing in a third party to assist you with the sale is, is they can handle all that for you. But you have to understand what you have, what you're bringing to market and price it right. I gotta tell you, one of the biggest mistakes I see people out there is putting a vehicle in the wrong marketplace. And it's interesting, just this morning, obviously. All of us spend way too much time on Facebook Marketplace, right? You know, digging around, right? Um, and always digging around for deals. Uh, and just this morning I saw, uh, actually ironically in my local area, an absolutely beautiful final year, 1980 scout too, that had been frame off, nut and bolt resto. This thing would, I mean, LS conversion, like, I mean, this thing was like nothing I've ever seen, right? And if a client was to come to me, I would say 100%, this is an 80 to $100,000 truck. Easy, hands down, it wasn't built by any big name builder, so you didn't have that panache or that extra value that you would get with like, you know, a binder boneyard or a new legend, you know, type of a... or silverback type of type of scout. But somebody had spent a serious amount of money and done a very, very good job. But the first problem is they had a price at a hundred thousand dollars, which is not unrealistic, right? Right. That's the top end of the market, but you had it on Facebook marketplace, right? So that's number one. It was completely in the wrong marketplace. There are not a lot of buyers for a hundred thousand dollar trucks in Facebook marketplace, right? That's number one. It was in the wrong marketplace. right. But number two, you're selling $100,000 truck, right? You need to provide $100,000 experience, right? And part of providing that $100,000 experience to attract that $100,000 buyer is preparation, is presenting it in the market and putting its, not only presenting it in the right marketplace, but putting it its best foot forward. This Facebook marketplace listing had six pictures. Yes, six pictures, right? Six, right? they do the license plate covering with the finger. That's my favorite, right? Okay, cool. Nice. Yeah. This is what really bothered me the most. The description was two lines. Know what you got, yeah. I was like, this thing will never, like you're looking for a needle in a haystack, right? In the wrong haystack. It just didn't make any sense. And I like, I reached out to the guy to say, hey, I can help you out, like, you know, and I haven't heard back from him. But that is like, if there's a couple of big mistakes I see sellers make, it's number one, not preparing it correctly for sale, right? Number two, not providing a potential buyer the correct information. Mm-hmm. And number three, putting it in the wrong marketplace. Right? And I'd like to hear your take on marketplaces before we go into the how to best, the best practices of selling your truck. I'm interested to hear, because I'm seeing some trends out there where marketplaces are shifting, buyers and sellers are going to different marketplaces. What are you seeing out there? that's a, that's a really good question. I think, you know, you and I've talked on this podcast every several months. And I think the answer to that question is just different every single time. Right. It's, it's evolving so fast. And to your point, I mean, that's, that's the point I was making earlier about know what you got. You know, if you're selling a hundred thousand dollar car, you have to have the content, something like Facebook marketplace, which by the way, I'm banned from because I was listing there and they flagged me as a dealer. So I'd love to see that listing, but you'll have to send me screenshots. Um, you know, you, you really have to know where you're listing and what that audience is going to demand, put the money into content. It's not that expensive anymore, right? To get really good photography. Um, you know, you kind of get what you pay for. If you want to take it with your cell phone, take it with your cell phone. Those are good if you're going to do one off, but not if you're selling $80,000 car, even if you're selling a $30,000 plus dollar car. you know, you can bury that cost really easily and you get your money out of it really quickly. But in terms of the marketplaces, I do really appreciate some of the, you know, the other platforms that have demanded that the content game improves, right? Video walkthroughs, engagement with buyers and sellers, engagement with questions, transparency about flaws. These are the types of things that build confidence when you're looking at those types of listings. I do see somebody like a cars and bids doing a really nice job of really being forthcoming about here's the flaws, here's the paint issues that we're seeing, here's what we're seeing on the undercarriage, here's rust issues, right? You know, you can do that in a way that's honest and transparent. And if you have a car worth, you know, worth it, then that's a seller is going to be appreciative of and come to market with that. The way that buyers and sellers are transacting to your point has really evolved, right? We saw a lot of growth in digital marketplaces, or specifically digital auctions, during the pandemic. That's cooled down a little bit. You know, the parity between digital and offline is returning. I don't think digital auctions are going any place. But, you know, you do see a lot of niche focus auctions popping up. But you know, you have to balance the curated niche focus with, or the buyers actually there. Right. So that's a really important step as you're evaluating those marketplaces classified. That's not going anywhere. You just have to know where you're looking. Right. We look at auto traders specifically, you know, some of their classic inventory, which balances out and has a little bit more focus. But, you know, you're still not really sorting and toggling and filtering by what you're actually looking for. If you're looking for a truck and four by four. Right. They don't have that kind of categorization. but the marketplace is evolving. Auctions aren't going anywhere. Classified has improved because I think sellers wanna continue to control that experience, right? So we're seeing alternate products even pop up that gives a little bit more control to the seller versus kind of blindly trusting an auction house. So we've definitely seen some graduation or evolution, which is great because they've improved the demand for content. but there's a return and a response back from sellers who wanna control that experience a little bit more. That's interesting. You bring up a lot of good points there. And I gotta tell you that what I'm seeing out in the marketplace is, cause I'm actively placing my clients, trucks and four by fours out in the marketplaces. And that's a big part of what I do is I develop a strategy, a go-to-market strategy and have to execute that go-to-market strategy. And what I'm seeing is, yes, the physical in-lane auctions are still doing well. They've had a... a tough couple months, right? But I'm starting to see sellers and even buyers get fed up with those fees. They're starting to realize that they, those really, really fee heavy auctions, which, you know, physical in lane auctions, which always basically to use a lack of better words, always guaranteed you top dollar. They're not guaranteeing your top dollar anymore. You can still, you can now kinda get that in the right digital auction format. Right. So there's kind of a parody, but the absurd pricing that comes along with buying and selling and transacting in a physical in lane auction is now actually counterproductive. So we're starting to see a lot of those sellers and buyers move towards the digital and online auction format, which is still from a fee standpoint, very, very advantageous. And now from a value and sell price standpoint is now really getting parity numbers to what you're getting in lane or in lane and physical auctions. But I'm also seeing a massive transition and a segmentation of online auction and digital auction platforms. So When the market was good and things were great, and all boats rose with the tide, you could just kinda, if you were a 17-digit VIN, you could throw it out there on cars and bids. If you were a classic custom modified or didn't have a 17-digit VIN, you could throw it out and bring a trailer, and man, you were getting top dollar. They had tons of eyes on the trucks or the vehicle that you were auctioning off, and things were good. we're starting to see a massive parity, shift from buyers and sellers, even away from the large scale digital auction platforms. And there's, in my own opinion, there's a reason for that. Number one, again, I'll use cars and bids and bring a trailer as an example. Both are great platforms, don't get me wrong. You will... certain vehicles will perform very well. I leverage both those platforms for my clients, right? Will perform very well on those platforms. But we've had, and this is coming from my background working in automotive private equity and M&A, you see that both of those organizations, talking about cars and bids, Doug Morrow, who founded that, built a very successful business, right? And Randy Norenberg, who founded Bring a Trailer, right? Both of those founders and majority shareholders have had a liquidity event, which means they sold to an investor, right? So Doug Morrow sold cars and bids to a private equity investor who's now the majority shareholder. And he is essentially a minority shareholder and almost just an employee in the company he founded, right? But he had a windfall and rightfully so, he deserves that. He built an amazing business, right? And the same holds true with Randy at Bring a Trailer. You know, he built an amazing business. What he did was absolutely insane. Right. What he built in the time of period he built it in was absolutely insane. Kudos to him. He deserves every to laugh all the way to the bank. He deserves every dollar he made out of that transaction. He sold to a strategic investor. Right. So again, same thing. Now, minority investor, essentially just an employee in his in his own business. Right. But when you have You made an interesting point about both of those guys. Sorry. But what's really interesting about both those guys is they built on content. You know, you talked about what Randy was able to do. Randy was able to do something in two or three years with that auction platform. That's absolutely outstanding and absolutely love how that game got escalated. But it was seven years of building articles and content and curating an audience. And the same thing with Doug. Doug has his content arm and that's what he's still continuing to do. And that content really drives in the audience and it builds a community. So that's the difference between those two platforms and some of the other folks that are popping up, right? They just haven't taken the time. They've, they've created an auction platform, right? Which has its own, you know, technical requirements. you're not curating that audience. And just credit to those guys, I'm building an audience. And I think when you're talking about selecting a partner to bring your vehicle to market, you need to think about content. And that doesn't mean just blasting on any social media channel. It means really having an intentional strategy. To your point earlier about how are you gonna present this thing and who are you gonna present it to? And what language are they speaking? And what qualities of vehicle are they looking for? And those guys really have nailed that and it's come through in the platforms that they've had. Um, but I think that content piece is just, I mean, if you're going to summarize everything, it's, it's content, right? It's how do you want to bring this thing? couldn't agree anymore. And that was the key of their success, which is why they were able to sell those companies for big dollars. And rightfully so, they worked hard, did a good job doing it, you know? But when you have an investor that is your majority shareholder, they need a return on that investment, right? And I'm talking from, you know, my private equity days, my automotive private equity days, where, you know, I worked to build and manage a portfolio of automotive related businesses, is you need a return on that investment. And what's happened is, to get that return, those investors have said, you know what, we need to have more auctions, right? Cause that generates fees, right? So, you know, use BAT as an example where they had a smaller amount of, you know, nicely curated auctions. Now at any given time, you're talking about 800 plus auctions live on that platform at every single day, right? So again, simple economics, right? If you have, you know, We'll say though the market is softening and there are a little less eyes out in the market, but we'll just use for simple example. We'll say you have the same amount of eyes. You have a certain amount of eyes on 400 auctions, right? You're gonna get great sell through, average sale prices are gonna be strong, you're gonna see a good appreciation and a good strong sell through number, 80 plus percent. But when you take that same amount of eyes and you dilute it with 800 plus auctions, right? What ends up happening is you simple economics, supply and demand, right? You now have the same amount of demand with way more supply. It's pretty simple. Sell-through was going to go down. And we've seen the sell-through numbers, um, which have correlated in this period of time where they've doubled auctions, decreased drastically. And we've also seen average sale prices decreased drastically, right? So if we dissect this a little bit further, right, you know, who wins and who loses in this equation, right? So the buyer wins because now they have 800 vehicles to choose from, right? You know, and, or more vehicles to choose from, but at better prices, right? Because prices have come down, right? The company wins, right? The organization, the investors win, right? Because they're now generating more fees on 800 auctions, even though their sell through has gone down. 20%, they're still generating more revenue. But who's the loser? In every equation, there's a loser, right? It's a seller, right? The seller is the one that is impacted by a 20% decrease in sell through and lower average sale prices. So the seller is the one that's a loser. And I'm not to say that there isn't certain vehicles that will perform very well in that marketplace, right? But... the days of just throw it up on bring a trailer, you're gonna get top dollar are over. That's over, right? And as the market pulls back and the quote unquote tide goes out, this is where if you were a seller in this market, it's still a great balanced market. You have to be very strategic and present your vehicle the right way in the right marketplace to yield the highest sell price. It's that simple, right? So let's talk about. I mean, you're talking about fewer eyeballs, right? And you're talking about more competition and longer wait times, you know, that I don't know if they've staffed up accordingly to a service, you know, they'll do 600 plus trucks and four by fours alone in a month, right? And that's, so that's 600 different trucks and four by fours that you're competing, even if you narrow down your audience to that niche, you know, it's... It's just a lot of opportunity costs anymore. And to your point, I don't think that 30% premium is really still there for what you're kind of getting back in return. But what's interesting is the trend I'm seeing is a lot of buyers and sellers moving away from these large scale platforms that have, for lack of better terms, sold out, right? But rightfully so. They built a successful business and this is the business and finance side of me. Like, Hey, you build something, you build equity, right? You should be rewarded for that hands down, right? Um, but and it's been really good for us too. I'm not gonna lie. You know, we get a lot of rebounds or people that have come off of bring a trailer, had a bad experience. We can run an auction with them. Same amount of eyeballs, right? If we go view for view, you know, when we ran your CJ for auction, we were trumping what they were putting out on views, right? We were getting the same number of views on your auction, if not more, we're not bringing a trailer. And I think on the second side of that is, you know, with 60% sell through rates, that leaves a lot of really interesting inventory to have a second chance. And that's where we come in on the classified side too, is having a curated audience. People are already familiar with the vehicle. They've seen what it's done. They've seen the questions and answers, and there's a really good chance of it, you know, attracting some more eyeballs on our platform. Some of these platforms just don't have that diversity of product offerings. So again, it kind of goes down to who you're gonna partner with. When you have 800 auctions, something's going to get lost in the mix, right? You know, I'd say a third of those auctions are going to get the, the numbers and the attention they desire, but the other two thirds aren't, you know, and the proof is in the, in the, in the numbers. But, you know, what I'm starting to see is one of the biggest trends is buyers and sellers moving towards, you know, the niche players in the space, right? You know, and I'll use, you know, we're starting to see, you know, Porsche buyers and sellers, you know, where the guys would be on, you know, those, those buyers and sellers will be on BAT or cars and bids, they're moving over to PCAR, right? So, you know, Porsche, so we're starting to see enthusiasts really, you know, really segment themselves and, you know, buy and transact in these more focused, enthusiast driven marketplaces, right? So, you know, Porsche, Porsche people are going on to, are really defecting from the larger marketplaces and, focusing their time and energy in P car marketplace. Mercedes Benz enthusiasts, MB market, right? You see American muscle enthusiasts, Classic is a big one for American muscle. Marked is another one for European classics, right? You're starting to see those enthusiasts go there. And then lastly, of course, ForB, right? So the truck, the classic custom unique truck and four by four enthusiasts are going to ForB, right? And so though you have less eyes, you have much smaller curated auctions. So in the end, the more segmented marketplaces are actually growing, they're seeing more eyes, right? But they're keeping their classified and auction businesses to be very curated, right? So, you know, like you guys, you guys will run two to three auctions at a given time, right? So though you have less eyes and BAT, the eyes that you do have on those auctions are captive, right? They are people just looking for to buy classic custom, unique trucks and four by fours, right? And you're presenting those to them, but you're giving them a very curated experience at that time, at every time. And that's what the, the segmented marketplaces are doing. And that's why we're seeing the buyers and sellers move to those segmented marketplaces. Not to say the larger scale diversified online marketplaces, online platforms and classified and auction platforms aren't. There is certain vehicles that will get the attention they deserve, but you have to understand that. And that's being a student in the market. And you have to have an expertise that understands that. Right. Not everybody can understand that. I think some of the differentiator too, and that niche focus too is not just having the capability, right? It's, you know, you have classified, we have auctions. But how do you make it so that listing is applicable to that marketplace? How do you make it so that things like sorting and filtering are intuitive to that marketplace? That's really the key. And that's the opportunity that the niche focus marketplaces have is, you know, bring a trailer cars and bids. They've done a great job, but the same template that you see or the same filtering options that you see for a Porsche 911 versus, you know, High Boy are the exact same. You don't let those details really sing and come through. And that's important for the seller, right, to connect to the right buyer, because the buyer needs to be able to find that vehicle and really be able to find those specifications and find those details come through. So... That's the advantage of those niche focused markets is they understand what you're looking at, what you're trying to sell and can really specify and get those viewers, right? You get 10,000 views and you're bringing a trailer auction. Are those really dedicated buyers? You don't know, but you know, would you take fewer views if you know that they've been curated? It's kind of the question, right? Yep, I agree. So let's definitely move on and talk about the process how to effectively and efficiently sell a classic custom unique truck or four by four. But before we do so, I think we should introduce the third participant on today's podcast, which is Jiminy the Cricket. For all you listeners out there who can't hear that cricket in the background, Brian's office is actually in his basement and he has a... a cricket that has been plaguing him for days while working. He can't find it anywhere, but I don't know if my producer, Bren, can get that cricket sound out of the background. Hopefully he can't so you listeners can hear it and realize what I'm actually talking about. So if you do hear that cricket in the background, we do have a third participant today. It's in Brian's office. That's Jiminy the Cricket, right? Welcome to the podcast, Jiminy the Cricket. He's driving me nuts, I can't find it anywhere. But this is what, I'm sure you'll let this go. I'll never hear from this about this from you again. That's for sure. Too funny, man. So, you know, let's break down the process of how to effectively and efficiently sell a trucker four by four, right? It's, first off, the whole process is very time consuming. There's a ton of aggravation that goes along with it. And there's a lot of steps to it. I boil it down very easily at Classic Four by Four. And the way I explain it to my clients that approach me to help them sell their trucks or four by fours is... It's really pretty simple, but I dilute it down for them just for simplicity purposes. What goes, there's a lot more steps than I actually explain. When I explain it to a prospective client, what I do and the value add that I bring to the table for them, I explain it as I evaluate and do a full valuation of your vehicle. I provide actual hard data. So the first step is the valuation. I provide hard data of comparable vehicles that have traded recently in marketplaces to help to value a rough sale price range, right? So usually within $5,000, I say, I feel that your truck will sell, presented correctly in the right marketplace between X and X, right? Sometimes people... right? Like you need an objective voice to come in and say, because you said the key word, it's comparable, right? And having a kind of a reality, a gut check of here's what the market is actually dictating for your car. I think it just makes the rest of the transaction a lot smoother. Your expectations are where they need to be. And you're putting yourself in the right kind of decision mindset. Again, do I have the content? Am I going to find the marketplace that's going to appeal to the buyer and hit the higher end of that spectrum? But you really need that objective voice to look at comparable sales. You know, it's easy to look and say, here's what the top one did, but you need that voice. I agree. And also, and using a comparable sale, right? That is through an evaluation of your specific vehicle to say this vehicle is comparable to your vehicle, right? Because everybody will find the sale out there that was the top sale, right? But yeah, that was a impeccable nut and bolt, frame off resto with a coyote swap, right? Like that's not your truck. Right. And but having somebody that understands that can explain that thoroughly. But at the end of the day, it comes down to the data. Right. And I hear a lot from prospective customers like, oh, there's 10 trucks out there that are for sale in the classified marketplaces for between X and X. You're correct. They've also been for sale for six months. They haven't successfully sold. Right. And those are passive sellers that are hoping that, you know, some somebody just stumbles out of the woodwork and pays them somewhere near the raskin. It's not realistic. right. Here's what actual trucks have sold for in the past three months, right? This is the market, not what people are asking, what actual vehicles have transacted for in the first three months. So that first step is evaluation process. And then we go into the preparation, which the preparation piece of the process is, in my opinion, the most important part of the process and the most tedious, right? So... Like what I do, what we do at Classic 4x4 as part of our preparation is not only do we do a full inspection of the vehicle, right? And that's, you know, hey, if a perspective buyer is interested in seeing that, we'll provide it. But more so, they usually don't need to see it because we use that inspection for our own use to make sure that our copywriters do provide a honest and transparent, full and detailed description of the vehicle. Right. So. we want to know, you know, hey, what's wrong with your truck? And nothing's ever perfect. There are some perfect trucks out there, don't get me wrong, but nothing's ever a hundred percent perfect and that's okay. But it's making sure that we, you know, are very transparent about some of those variables. But you take those with a great, you take the inspections with a grain of salt. So the first step of preparation is the inspection. The second step is photography, right? So important, having hundreds of digital, and you mentioned this early, hundreds of high quality, you know, digital images, walk around videos, cold start videos, so that a prospective buyer feels like they're standing next to the truck. Their, their lenses is through those hundreds and hundreds of pictures and those detailed videos. So they feel like they're standing right next to the truck. Cause the fact of the matter is there's a 90 plus percent chance that whoever purchases that truck on, on that marketplace, you know, is not going to be local. It's very rare. I can count on all the vehicles and all the trucks I've represented throughout the years, my own and clients trucks. I can count on one hand that the number of times a local buyer has bought, you know, it's always somebody from across the country somewhere, right? Um, but you know, you have to have that photography and like you said, the content and the, having a copywriter that can, that can write a, a very intuitive, transparent, and honest and detailed description, right, is so important because disclosing everything, the good, the bad, right, the history is so important because again, it gives that perspective buyer more comfort in knowing what they're bidding on, what they're making offer on. It's, it's absolutely so important. So Yeah, I think content, what it does is it raises the ceiling while simultaneously raising the floor, right? Because the last thing that you want, look, put yourself in the buyer's shoes. The last thing you want is to show up at this place cash in hand and find surprises, right? So it takes away some of that surprise element, which we don't want and which creates a lot of frustration when the buyer actually comes around. It instills that confidence more often than not, right? It doesn't scare away buyers as much as it does instills confidence in the right buyer. So it increases that where that floor is, but it also creates some aspiration, right? If I hear that cold start, or if I see you, doing a driving video, I'm in that seat, right? It's not you, it's me. And I can see myself on that steering wheel. And that's really the ticket is, how can you create that trust element? through photos and content, right? Being very transparent about what the flaws are, but then how can you make it aspirational? It's not crooked cell phone pictures. It's not two to six images, right? It's that 50 plus and taking the time to do it right and making sure you have the right composition, making sure that you have the right angles and making sure that you're being very honest about what those pros and cons are. That creates aspiration and that's the difference, right? And quite honestly, it brings more eyes to the vehicle that you're marketing, right? The more transparent you are, the more eyes are gonna, the more trust is built in you as a seller and the process as a whole. So if you're providing hundreds and hundreds of pictures, you're providing immense amount of detail in the description, and you're also disclosing a few of the core or as many of the... you know, overall deficiencies that vehicle has, right? It's gonna build trust, right? You know, if somebody is opening up themselves that much to their vehicle and is comfortable doing it, right? They're, you're not, a prospective buyer is not gonna feel like they're hiding anything. Therefore, it's gonna bring more buyers and more attention to your listing, right? Or your auction, which will in turn allow it to transact at the high end of the price spectrum. Hands down, high end of the market, no question. You know, one of the one of the fastest vehicles that we've been able to sell, it came through our classifieds. And it was kind of a bare bones e 350 four by four, not a ton of, you know, special components, it was priced properly. You know, not a not a crazy build out it, but the person who owned it, she was a professional photographer, and just the best pictures, imaginable and just honest, honest pictures, but also, again, little aspirational and we don't like to have a lot of filters on the picks, but I'll tell you, we ran that Instagram story by far. Our most popular stories to date drove a ton of clicks, a ton of interest, a ton of shares. And that's what you want is, you know, if you have the marketplace to attract the right buyers in the first place and then are inspired to share it, that just goes so far. So having that variety of content, I think really opens you up to different mediums in which you can sell and push it. at the end of the day, it just brings more people and more eyes. The more people, more eyes, the more people that are going, the more potential buyers that are going to make offers, you know, are less reluctant to click that bid button in the auction. It's that simple. And the more money the seller is going to get at the end of the day. So, you know, we've talked about the, the first two steps of, of my process, you know, which is the, the valuation preparation, but then, you know, you do all this work. Now it's time to go to market, right? Which is the third step in my process. And there's two pieces to this. There is the development of the strategy, right? The marketing strategy and the execution of that strategy, right? The execution is actually the easy part. Developing the strategy is the difficult part. And when I talk about developing a strategy, it's not only what marketplaces. Should this vehicle be, you know, this specific vehicle be put in, right? What, how are you gonna get, where do you have that captive enthusiast? Which marketplaces are going to attract the most captive enthusiasts for this specific type of truck or four by four, right? But in what timing to do so, right? Certain times, I had a conversation yesterday with a prospective client who the strategy was, you know what, it makes sense to skip classifieds and go right to an auction platform. Right? You know, that makes sense. This is the auction platform that makes sense. And I just successfully sold a 1976 F-250 Highboy. Oh, it was gorgeous. Absolutely gorgeous. So we'll talk a little bit more about that. But I successfully sold that for a client, a very small scale collector, had like two or three, you know, vehicles in his collection in Washington state and just didn't have room anymore. Wasn't really, you know. wasn't really playing with them anymore. Just a real down to earth, easy going client, right? So though I do have clients that are large scale collectors and family offices that represent ultra high net worth people, I also have clients that now work with people that are onesie twosies across the entire country. But he was out in Washington and he was just ready to move on, I sold that truck and we used a strategy there where We wanted to test the market, right? From where I had initially valued the vehicle by the time where we went to go to market, the market had changed a little bit. Some of the trucks, there was less supply out in the market. So some of the trucks that were available out in the market had sold through. And by the way, they had sold through at really good numbers. So, you know, at the end of the day, I have a responsibility to my client, right? My motivation's in line with their motivation to yield the highest sell price. And could I have easily just, you know, use the valuation I initially put on it and said, you know what, bring it out to market and sold it in days? Yeah, I could have done that, but that's not doing right by anyone, right? So I said, you know what, I wanna go out into the classified markets. I wanna use a few of these specific, enthusiast dedicated classified marketplaces, right? And I wanna test the market at a number that is actually $8,000 above where I had valued the truck, right? Right. And he didn't complain about it. He said, all right, whatever, you know, but I don't want to waste time. I just want to get this process over. I still want to move it in a timely manner and said, okay, well guess what? I was right. It worked out. Right. But we were going to bring it to auction if we didn't, you know, after we tested the market for a month and didn't have success, but in the end I was right. We ended up getting him, you know, way more than the initial valuation I had given him. But again, it's that market expertise that, you know, the fact that I'm looking at the market all day long, right? So that is a key part of the strategy too is not only developing the strategy, but pivoting it and then executing it correctly, right? So, cause initially we were gonna go to an auction platform. We said, you know, let's test out the market in some classified marketplaces at a higher asking price because the market has changed, right? It actually has changed in our favor and appreciated and it worked out and he got a great number and. Uh, it was 14 days on the market. We had 50 plus, uh, inquiries we got, I think it was about 14 offers, right. Uh, which I, when I boiled it down and actually qualified all those, for those perspective buyers that made those 14 offers, uh, actually only four of them qualified, right. Uh, so we negotiated for offers and ended up having one happy buyer and one happy seller. So it was. And that's something that you do ahead, right? Like that's, you'll pre-qualify and pre-negotiate with those before you really kind of put it in front of the customer. Oh yeah, I mean, and the way that my agreement works is it's more so as long as it's within this threshold, right? I can, I have, I have carte blanche to execute the transaction, right? So, you know, I'm not really bothering the customer, the client at that point, right? I'm handling everything, you know, when it's 50 plus people that want more information on the truck, right? I'm providing that information unless I need some more information from the client, but I really try to ingrain myself before I even, you know, that's part of the evaluation process, the first step. But then, you know, I, when I get an offer, which from whatever platform it's at, right? The first thing I do is before I even negotiate it, I qualify that, that prospective buyer. Cause you know, yeah, I got 14, I think it was roughly 14 offers, but I only negotiated four of them. So 10 of those people that made offers, I deemed as unqualified, right? And honestly, it's pretty simple. If I ask the question, okay, you know, Thank you very much for your offer, but I wanna talk a little bit more about your qualifications. Do you have the funds available ready? If we do come to an agreement, do you have the funds available ready to put a wire through to execute all the documentation, the needed documentation within a 24 to 48 hour period of time and then also if transport is required to have the transport arranged and done usually within seven days. If you can't answer that question, I'm not wasting my time with you, right? you. Yeah. Right. had four very qualified buyers. And in the end, we ended up getting a great number that was very, very smidge off of asking, right, but was the most qualified buyer, right. And I will say in that sense, that instance, we actually did have a buyer that was a little less qualified that was willing to give us what we're asking. And we took an offer that was a smidge, just I'm saying a smidge less, right? from a more qualified buyer. Cause that's how I advise my client. He said he was right. And when that other buyer didn't get there, we didn't accept their offer. They actually ended up freaking out. And the, yeah, believe it or not, the buyer came back to me and said, Chris, I was very skeptical, but you advised me correctly to take a smidge less money. It was not a lot of money that we took last by the way, but like he goes, I was a little skeptical at first, but now that I see how this guy is acting, you know what? Thank you for your expertise. You advised me correctly. We made the right decision, right? Because we would have lost that other buyer if we hadn't. So back to the strategy, the execution, developing the strategy and properly executing the strategy and going to market. But which brings us to the last step, which I think everybody forgets about. It's like, okay, I've accepted an offer, right? I sold the truck, but there's the post sale. There's a lot of operational logistics after you sell the truck. Right. And I don't think people realize, realize that. And, you know, that's again, some more value that I bring to the table is, you know, making sure that all the documentation is done correctly. That, that protects my, my seller, my client, right. You know, post sale, protect, protects my seller, protects my client, puts everything in writing is transparent about the transaction. making sure that they get paid and they get paid correctly in a safe, secure manner, right? And advising them, also assisting them with the ownership transfer, the documentation associated with the ownership transfer, and then assisting the buyer in the transportation piece of it to make sure that, yeah, it's sold, my client got paid, they've done all the documentation, then they don't turn into a storage facility for a month, right? Because everybody wants it all out of their hands, right? So... making sure that the transportation, the logistics pick up is all handled correctly. You know, the post sale is a big piece of it. And it's a, it's a, all those four pieces that I just went through, is I kind of give it a big picture, right? But there's a lot of intricacies and, and immense amount of time and detailed and detailed expertise that goes along with that. But, you know, you actually had a very good, in really preparing for this episode, you provided some good detail and got a little bit more granular on that process. I keep it very high level and simple, right? Because I'm executing it, but I'm interested to go a little bit more granular into the process, the four steps of the process and break it down a little bit further. So wanna walk us through that? So, you know, I think you first of all, that last step, that is a tremendous amount of value, I think, especially to a seller who might be lower volume and don't want to deal with paperwork issues. There's a lot, there's a lot that goes, a lot of the work is that post transaction, right? It's not getting to that final number. It's really what happens after that. It's transportation, it's storage, it's pickup, it's the facilitation of that deal. And there's just a tremendous amount of value. And it's really interesting, as we talked about methodology for how sellers are bringing to market, there's a proliferation of these type of consignment. It's not really consignment, it's preparation, those types of services and it matters. And those are the ones that are getting the top dollar, but also taking the headache off of. some of the craftsmen, right? And those are those the people that when we set out that we want to help is those people who should be in the garage making their art and, you know, helping them bring it to market and not have to deal with some of that stuff that we're pretty well versed in that you're really well versed in. And that's where we can offer some guidance and keep that art coming out. But you know, I think you nailed it. I think our steps are pretty much the same way. It's that market research. You have to know what you have. You have to know what you're up against, what the market looks like, and you have to move a little quickly, right? You know, we talked about how quickly that market is moving around people. And if you're waiting six, eight weeks plus to make it through, you know, a breakthrough 600 plus trucks and four by fours on a big auction platform, hey, you might get a little bit of a premium. Even if you do get a little bit of premium, that market can shift around you. So you really have to know your market and you have to know. when and where's the right time to strike. Evaluating the vehicle, just like you said, you have to know what you're up against, you have to be objective about what the vehicle offers, what the pros and cons are, what the value of modifications are or are not, more often than not. Setting that price, being very realistic about what the price range looks like, and then finding a marketplace that is going to accommodate that kind of cost, right? So... You know, if you want a lot of still available, still available, is it still available? You know, Craigslist is a great place and Craigslist is a great place to draw eyes to a place that's going to present it a little bit differently and qualify some of those buyers, um, prepping the vehicle, just like you were talking about. I'm big on the content. You have to have a marketplace that enables content properly. So that's description, that's photo, that's video, and that's even just how you go to prep. Nobody wants to see what your lunch was, right? So nobody wants to see what lunch was on your seat the day before. Clean the car. I take a lot of pleasure out of detailing the engine bay. It's like the most spectacular hack for listing and selling your car, but you have to just prep it right again, putting somebody in an aspirational mindset. This could be mine, this could be in my driveway. So those are really important to us. detail will yield you way more than $250 in sale price at the end of the day. I can't, I cannot stress that enough. And like you said, the little things like detailing the engine bay, like, I mean, a bottle of Armorall costs what, $5, right? With that and a microfiber, the return on that is absolutely exponential. If you want a really good video for engine detailing, Chris fix it, I don't know if you've come across him, but he does a really phenomenal video of how to really go through it in a variety of different engines. It's pretty cool, you can go in depth, but to your point, it's five bucks to wipe it down and those details matter. We list so many trucks that have a really nice photo composition, really great setting, and then they open up the hood and it's like, can you just get a leaf blower and blow off some of the dust, right? Like it just takes a little bit of that extra effort, but... That goes a long way into the perception of it. But you were talking about marketplaces. There's so many different places to list. And I do think that when you're developing your strategy and you've done a really good job with this, you do have to look at multiple sources. You do have to, and then you have to consider what those sources are and what their pros and cons are, and then speak and be medium appropriate to those different kind of marketplaces. Awesome. I want to roll back. You talked about the more granular steps, understanding the market, evaluating the market, properly valuing your truck in the market, the preparation piece, developing the strategy, executing the strategy, the post sale. But you mentioned something about evaluating your truck, which a lot of people, there's a lot of debate out there about, which is modifications. So I actually, you know. for our listeners out there that aren't from there, I actually do all the valuations for several different marketplaces, including ForB where clients will come to them and they'll say, hey, I wanna auction my vehicle off, this is what I want for it. And they will say, hey, we need somebody that understands this marketplace, that's a student of the marketplace, that has their finger on the pulse because their representatives don't always, even though ForB, all they do is trucks, they still use me to do their valuations amongst other larger. digital classified and auction platforms. And we recently had one that you guys brought to me, which I don't wanna divulge too many details, but it was a late model Toyota that had easily and had very few miles on it that had easily, what would you say about 50,000 worth of modifications on it? Yeah. Oh man. And this truck was built beautifully. When I tell you it was done right. the wire management, the, I mean, it was just, it was so, it was done right. Whoever did this, the seller that did this, just did it right. They, it was a brand new Tacoma and they started out fresh and they built this thing just, and it had about $50,000 worth of modifications on it. And unfortunately that seller just wasn't as realistic because he wanted dollar for dollar. Every modification they put into it, not only the cost of, the truck, right? Which we all know, we talk about Toyotas hold their value very well, right? So especially a Toyota with like no miles on it, right? So though there was a body style change and that did affect the value of the underlying truck, he was looking for, and he understood that, right? So he was realistic on the value of the underlying truck, but wanted dollar for dollar on the modifications, right? So we actually dissected that. and went down and went through the entire list of, I think it was like three pages of modifications. And there were certain modifications that we could justify dollar for dollar. There were certain modifications we could justify 70 cents on the dollar. But the fact of the matter is a vast majority of the modifications, we couldn't even justify 25 cents on the dollar. Right? Which is... And I'm interested from your perspective, what modifications do you see that, you know, when you have sellers come to you as a marketplace, what modifications do you see that hold the most value in the least value? You know, I think anytime that you put a customization on it, you're narrowing the market, right? Your customized vehicle is made for one person. And, you know, there are some basic modifications, suspension, some audio upgrades that are really, really applicable to a wide audience. But when you start talking about awnings or pop-up campers or tow campers, or, you know, different living type modifications, you're not gonna get the ROI. it. There's just no marketplace on Earth that's going to get that value out of it. Now, the best we can do is really help tell that story, talk about the quality of the elements, talk about why they matter, and really present that in an honest but encouraging way. But basic modifications, tires, brakes, suspension components, those are always in vogue, and you'll get a decent ROI. out of those, you'll get your dollars out depending on the mileage. Um, some audio or some site, some, um, infotainment type options. It, you know, it just becomes as you kind of work your way up from the ground, right? You just start to get things that are expected of the vehicle, right? Led lighting. Awesome. I expect my vehicle to have lighting, you know, so if you're replacing, uh, those headlights, you're probably not going to get your ROI out of it. You just, you just won't. So it's just a really interesting way to help value out those pieces. We've actually had a little bit more success or a little bit of a better response of people listing their vehicle for what it's worth and then making the aftermarket accessories a la carte. So adding them in and saying, Hey, if you want the full boat, it's X. If you want the vehicle, I'll sell it to you for this. Um, but you're not going to get some of the parts and modifications out. And it's more work, but it's true with anything, right? If you do kind of sell individually, that's the way to maximize your ROI. And I think that flexibility is actually really attractive to buyers who might be more than comfortable to have a pre-owned awning or a pre-owned camper attached into it, but making that optional to the buyer has become a very attractive prospect. So... We do try to coach some of our sellers into that if they're open to it, if they have the capability. But, you know, it's that's just been a way of trying to help overcome that obstacle because the ROI just isn't quite there. And even aggregating them all together, it's not the value that I think people are used to or hoping for. But tires, brakes, suspension, good ROI. You know, I want to see that you've. taking the time to put quality parts on your vehicle. It just comes down to the buyer sometimes though for anything on top of that. Is that a accessory or an upgrade to me or a modification that I'm actually gonna use or not? So it's really contingent on the buyer. But again, if it's how the car was supposed to be, you're not gonna get a ton of a premium on it. If it is a... exceptionally modified vehicle and I mean that is permanently changing it from its original state. So you're talking paint or you're talking about engine. Those are things that can work both ways. Right? You're going to get a smaller buyer pool. You might get some ROI out of that though. So there's a it's just a really diverse response back from the market on what those modifications look like. I agree the more general stuff lifts tires, you know, uh, audio, as long as it's not obtrusive, you know, is, is gonna yield. Um, you know, I don't want to say it was a dollar for dollar return, but as close to a dollar for dollar return as it possibly can. And again, it's a, it's a wider market that's interested in stuff like that. But as you start going further down the funnel, right. And the more specific you get, the, the more it's you're going to start to see, you know, 10, 20, 25 cents on the dollar that you invested, or even worse, you're actually detracting from the value. And I'll give you a couple of examples, and you alluded to it earlier, like there's a lot of overlanders out there, right? But it's a very narrow market. A lot of overlanders like to build their own rigs, right? So the secondary and resale market for built out overlanding rigs, and I'm not talking about, you know, I'm not really talking about like the, the four wheel drive Sprinter vans, you know, the $200,000, you know, Winnebago four wheel drive Sprinter vans. Like I'm talking more so about the Tacoma with the rooftop tent, with the inverter, with, you know, exactly with the inverter, with the water tank, with the, uh, 12 volt fridge, with the compressor. Yeah. The shower, all that. Once you start getting into that, that granular, that type of stuff, really, you're not gonna see very much return on what you've invested there, right? And like you said, it's actually probably worth more by taking it off, parting it out, and selling it on Facebook Marketplace, right? For that one guy that's looking for the rooftop tent while he's building his own rig, right? Or the 12-volt fridge. But I've also seen a lot of modifications that actually take value away, right? And a lot of them are very trendy. And the first one I'm gonna bring out, Which was, this was so cool. So cool. And I just talked about Joe from, on another episode. You know, I talked about this with Joe from Urban Jeep because he hopped on this trend and, you know, a lot of people liked it. Trail coding your truck. Wow. I gotta tell you, it was cool for a hot minute, but I gotta tell you, every time I talk to a client or a prospective client to represent, to sell their truck a classic four by four, or I'm valuing a vehicle for one of the, the auction marketplaces, when I see it's trail coded right out of the gate, I'm saying, okay, this is what it's worth. I'm probably taking 10 or 20% right off. Right? So it was hot for a while. Trail coding was cool. The problem is there's nothing you can do with trail coding. Once it's on there, it, to get it off is extremely labor intensive, right? To, to get it off, refinish a trail coded body and then repaint it. it starts at 20 to $25,000. It makes absolutely no sense. So trail coding actually devalues. The other thing I'm starting to see, which people probably don't take into consideration is lifts that are too big. So a nice four inch lift is nice with some 33s or some 35s, some tasteful wheels. And I'll give an example. I have a very good friend of mine who actually ironically was the one that bought my 81 CJ seven, right at auction, right. Uh, who it just happened that way. He daily drives. He's a developer daily drives an F three 50, um, platinum super crew, a newer F three 50 platinum super crew. It doesn't even have like 35,000 miles on it. Cause he just drives around town, but he put a 10 inch lifts with 40s on it. Right. comes to me and says, hey man, I gotta get rid of this thing, right? I was like, the first thing you need to do is rip that 10 inch lift off and put factory wheels on it. He goes, why? It's, first off, I'm tall, I'm 6'4", right? He's a little shorter than I am. I don't know how he gets into this thing, right? I have trouble getting into this thing when we go grab coffee some days, right? So, and the first thing he says, he goes, what? He goes, seriously? I go, you are narrowing down your market to nothing, right? And he's like, really? I never even, I go, you spent an immense amount of money on that 10 inch lift and those forties, right? And you not only will not get $1 of those back, you will actually get a negative return on that. Right? He's like, he's like, how much do you think it takes off the value? I said, probably, you know, somewhere about 10 to 20 grand. So it'll cost you about five grand to bring it back to factory, but you'll net out probably, you know, an extra five to 15,000. He was like flabbergasted, but. That's true. absolutely right. You're absolutely right. It's, you know, he built that for himself. I'm sure it's awesome. I'm sure it's, it's crazy. But, you know, an end user, one, you have a very small pool and two, honestly, what's the perception? You know, I'm sure he treated it very well. But you start to wonder, okay, well, what kind of what kind of issues does that create? Right? Are the upper control arms? Have those been modified right to accommodate? You know, you do those wheels, do those forges, do they rub? You know, you have to start to wonder what else am I gonna have to do as the buyer to make sure even if I do like that, have those actually been properly accommodated for? Yep, I agree. And those are the two, those are two things that stick out to me where you actually lose value on a modification. And anything that's super custom, like paint jobs, paint jobs, roll cages, anything that's like a rock crawler, stuff like that. I know people love to build rock crawlers, right? You guys just had that CJ3B, that thing was beautiful, built by Charlie Pitcher for his cousin. But the fact of the matter is, the market for rock crawlers, no matter who they're built by, right? It's just so minimal. And the amount of risk that people are going to put into that and what they're willing to pay for it is also minimal. It's just so. and that's an interesting one too, because we always have a pretty interesting engagement with individual communities for which a vehicle applies, right? Classic truck or imported Land Rovers, whatever the case is, we always try to engage individual communities that appreciate those. That rock crawler community, man, it doesn't matter what you put in front of them. If they didn't build it, it's not for them. Yeah. Yeah. really did a phenomenal job. It's it's badass. I'd love to roll up with that. But, you know, it just it just really is a tight group. You know, it came to me, I went to off grid adventures, they're a they're a van conversion shop, they actually have a location here in Maryland, and they have a new location out in Colorado. And they were doing an open house. And I really got to talking to one guy about his sprinter and solar and solar is a really interesting one. That's another piece that you want to really look into and make sure that you're presenting out is what's the warranty or what does the longevity look like? Especially when you're talking about something like solar where upgrades and changes over time are going to occur. What's interesting about the unit that this guy happened to have, and I forget exactly what it was, three lifetime warranty, totally transferable. And that's big. That means essentially that they define a lifetime as 20 years. It means essentially you've got a roof for 60 years. That's a really big deal. So it's interesting to see how some of these newer modifications, rooftop tents, awnings, they've been around, how are you looking at some of these newer modifications that are popping up and making things accessible? So those are value propositions to consider as well. Not just what you have, but that the next owner can enjoy it and get their value out of it too. Yeah, definitely. So it's interesting. We talked about the modifications, you know, just it's, it's food for thought for all of our listeners out there who are thinking about selling their trucks, and really, you know, evaluating what they have and understanding, um, you know, ha what they have and how the market desires it, it's marketability out there, but also how that relates to a value, right? Because the, one of the biggest mistakes I see sellers out there is they go out to market at a number. that is just way too high. They get no interest, right? Or very minimal interest. Or just it's a bunch of trolls telling them that their stuff is overpriced. Right. And they spoil the market. You know, they actually end up tainting the market because I get a lot of these people that will, and I've seen this happen to me a couple of times. And I really don't work traditionally will not work with what I call retread clients. Right. So I see this where a client will come to me. I'll prepare a full valuation of their vehicle. I'll present it with them with hard data and comps and I'll go through the trends. I'm very analytical and they'll say, you know what? My truck's worth way more. Right. And you know what? And yes, I understand that you deal with a lot of, you handle every step of the process, the preparation, the go-to-market, all the inquiries, the post-sale, but I'll do that myself. I don't need to. There's no reason. I don't see the value in having somebody else do it, especially if they want that person, you know, wants me to sell their truck for less than I think it's worth. Okay, cool. Wish you all the best. But I tell everybody the exact same thing. I wish you all the best. Trust me, there's nothing more than I want than you to get the most you possibly can out of your truck. Cause if we work together, that benefits both of us, right? But you run the risk of going out there. and tainting the market, right? Whether bringing it to auction and it not selling through, and then that now is documented data or just being out there for, you know, three, four, five, six months, and the buyers have all seen it, and they're like, you know what? It's been on the market for way too long. It's overpriced. There must be something wrong with it. Why isn't somebody else buying it? You actually end up tainting the market. And then what happens is three to six months later, these clients come back to me, even though I've said to them, Hey, you know what? If you're not successful, you know, I'll always try to help you out. But you know, I please like, you know, don't reengage me. The chances that we're going to be able to work together are very slim, especially if you change the market or, and I still come back to say, Hey, I'm ready. Right. I'm like, well, I look at these markets all day long. I saw that your truck didn't sell through on this auction platform. I saw that you had it out here, out here and out here. and you got zero views like, or you got a hundred views. Like I saw that, right? And I kind of, you know, nicely and eloquently, you know, kind of, you know, set the precedent and they'll say, well, I'm ready to, I see the value that you bring to the table. And I said, okay, well, I appreciate that. But unfortunately I can't further assist you because you've already tainted the market. So I gave you a value, you know, three, six months ago of X to X. But now that you've tainted the market, even though the market has maybe stayed completely stagnant, because you've tainted the market, your truck inherently is worth less. So now I'm willing to represent it, but I'm willing to represent it between X and X. And then they get thrown back, like, what? And you're like, it's the way it is. You get one bite at this apple. It either works or it doesn't work. And that's a big thing I don't think people realize, where... the value in having expert represent the sale, the marketing and the sale and advising them throughout the process is exponential, right? And worth, you know, every dollar. But the other thing that I don't think people value a lot is handling how time intensive it is to handle and qualify the buyers, right? And... I used that example early, like, you know, with the 1976 high boy, right? You know, we got 50 plus inquiries. Now I have to get back to all the 50 people in a timely manner, provide them detailed information, right? That takes an immense amount of time, right? Right out of the gate. And then I get people that, that do give offers, right? Then you have to qualify those people properly qualify those people, which we talked about 14 offers turned into four negotiated. So now there's 10 people why I have to explain to them, thank you very much for your offer, I appreciate it, but we're gonna further discuss with other buyers. Because the fact of the matter is a vast majority of prospective buyers out in the market are not qualified. But people don't realize that. You put too much trust in people that their word is bond. Oh yeah, no problem, I'll give you X for your truck. Okay, great, you know, now it's time they're like, well, I need financing, I need to move money around, I gotta sell this truck that's sitting in my front yard, not running, I gotta borrow this from my uncle, my mom, my brother, right? I won't even have a conversation with you until we fleshed all that out, right? But then you have to deal with, you know, the inquiries and not everyone out there is a nice, respectful person, right? And I'll back. to, I'll use that example of that, that full price buyer we had on the, on the F, the F two 50, he actually, the high boy, he actually was scheduled to come on a Friday, right? So which worked out great for me because I had other buyers scheduled for walk arounds. I had another guy that happened to be in the area looking at another truck, right? Who happened to see this truck? Um, and I had, uh, the buyer that ended up getting it. right, who was highly qualified, who presented himself very well. But we had other scheduled things from Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday before this person. So the person that came on Wednesday, that was the buyer, we ended up starting to deal with, we had all the documentation done, he initiated the wire and at that point I said, okay, the deal is done and I canceled the gentleman that was going to come on Friday and man, that guy freaked out. Right. So that's the thing is I deal with that. The seller doesn't have to deal with that. I have to deal with that person. Right. So the value right there and not having to deal and not be emotionally connected. I'll actually read a couple of texts that this guy sent to me. Oh, you're ready for this one. Right. So I wrote to him and I'm not going to use his name. Right. Um, I wrote to him, uh, not in using his name. We signed an agreement on the high boy this morning and we'll be canceling the showing tomorrow. I appreciate your interest and will follow up if anything changes. Thank you, right? His response is, don't worry about it. You've wasted enough of my time. Yikes. Okay. any of your time because you never actually even came and looked at it, right? So just so you know, I took out a $30,000 loan. F off! Exclamation point, exclamation point, exclamation point. Yikes. Right? Next one was, so I actually, at this point I'm like, ah, maybe I should block this guy, right? But I, you know, I kept him, right? Then he wrote me this diatribe of how he's a hardworking, blue collar guy. Keep in mind, the guy that bought the truck was a hardworking blue collar. He was a logger, actually, right? Goes up into the, yeah, was a logger, right? Who works very hard, year round, in a very dangerous situation, who, you know. saved up and wanted this truck and this is what he wanted, right? You know what? And then I wrote to him, it's nothing against you. It's just business. First come, first serve. The guy that is buying the truck is a logger that's equally hardworking. Be well and I'll keep an eye out for you. Because I'd happily, there were other, through my research, I knew that there were other high boys out there, right? And in the Pacific Northwest. So I actually would have referred him to a couple. for no benefit of me of just helping him out. He wrote. That may be how you do business, but it doesn't make it right. Go fuck yourself. So I have finished my responsibility to my client to get the most qualified buyer at the best number, right? Right. So you were not that qualified, but when I shared this with my client, he was like, thank God we didn't take that offer. That was a couple hundred dollars more expensive, right? Because, you know, and, and put, and pooh-poohed off the other more qualified buyer. Thank you for that advice. But I'm the one that's dealing with this. Think about you as a seller having to deal with this psycho. Right? So that is where the value of having a third party, advisor, market, sell, and represent the sale of your vehicle is right there. Isn't that craziness? right? It's like the getting through that negotiation period is one step and it's a giant hurdle to qualify and get to a buyer. Imagine what that buyer would have been like at those subsequent steps. Getting to the vehicle, getting transportation, actually that loan coming to fruition and getting payment through, oh, it'll be here any day and my bank says you have it. It's just... you have a good gut for those types of things and that goes a long way. And just the headache as a seller just sometimes is not worth it. And that's the thing is when prospective buyers throw up red flags very early in the process, that's right out of the gate. Part of the disqualification. This particular buyer didn't throw up any crazy red flags other than he was using financing, which is fine. I have no problem with that, but you're going to be, if you're using financing, you're going to be deep priorities between those that have the ability and have the money available right now. Right? So I will still consider you a qualified buyer, but I will deprioratory. prioritize you, right? Because that's what's in the best interest of my client at the end of the day, right? And the average seller who may sell one truck a year or one truck every couple of years just isn't familiar with this. When you do it every day, you've, you know, it's not your first rodeo you've seen at all, so. Yeah, and it, you know, fortunately takes people out of the game too, because that's exhausting. Right. So if you do have a seller who maybe has a good collection or, you know, they are modification shop or a custom shop and they don't want to deal with that. You just don't want to burn them out. So it's nice to have intermediaries. Um, you know, I was just, I was just thinking not to circle back to the modification piece, but very similar part about eking out that value service history, right. And that gets forgotten sometimes too. people don't wanna just know the cool modifications. They wanna know that you have taken the time to address a vehicle in general, right? So we're talking fluids, tires, brakes, make sure that it can pass inspection, that type of deal. But there's also a lot of very specific challenges with specific vehicles, right? That you wanna make sure that are addressed or that have been disclosed properly. So I sold a Lexus LX, right? So it has that height control, Air suspension. Right. So, you know, I went through and had that refitted and had that really built out properly and made sure that was addressed. And a buyer who knows that vehicle has probably already test driven a car that has an issue or has the light on or isn't working properly. So making sure that you address those individual and those specific pieces, I think go a long way to qualifying you as a seller and instilling that trust. but also that's where you're getting that value or making sure that you're maximizing the value that you're asking for. That sometimes goes a longer way than trying to slap on some new modifications and distracting people. I mean, I tell my clients and my prospective clients all the time that mechanical, proper mechanical maintenance and the fact that there are no mechanical disclosures on the sale is very important because that is taken for granted. People want to just assume that they are buying a vehicle that doesn't have any drivability mechanical issues. And addressing those before the sale is very important, right? Um, because you will detract a lot of people if you have to disclose mechanical drive or drive ability issues, hands down, no question. Um, but on the flip side, regular maintenance is one of those things that is expected, but doesn't hold any value. And I'll give you an example. I just, I had a client who just signed his contract this morning. We're going to be representing his truck, um, who basically said, you know what? In the past. six months, right? It's a very low mileage, highly original truck, but in the past six months has replaced the radiator, the water pump, all the associated rubber plumbing, the fuel tank sending unit, mechanical fuel pump, all the rubber soft lines, all the other wearables in the truck. I'm talking about tires, brakes, rotors, wipers, battery. Um, you know, uh, um, did a new valve cover cause the valve cover, the seal was, was old, was leaking, did, um, new, uh, um, uh, new plugs, uh, new, so new spark plugs, new plug wires, um, you know, just really maintained it correctly and got it to where it needs to be. And he said, man, I spent like 10 grand on this, right? I said, that's awesome. And it will help to attract more buyers, right. Which will help. to inherently increase the final sale price, but the fact of the matter is you're not getting dollar for dollar because those maintenance items are taken for granted. The answer is if you own a vehicle, it is taken for granted and you are required to maintain it and a prospective buyer appreciates it, right? And it'll bring more buyers to the market and feel more comfortable about bidding or making an offer on your truck, but there isn't a tangible dollar for dollar return on it, right? Because regular maintenance, and maintaining a vehicle is an expectation of a buyer. So it's that simple. So Brian, man, we've had a great conversation today. I hope all of our listeners have taken something away from our conversation today on how to properly... effectively, efficiently, successfully sell your truck or 4x4 out in the market. Whether you're doing it on your own or using a and going directly to the market places or using a third party like classic 4x4 to handle every aspect of the sale. Hopefully that there was some value for our listeners out there. So I appreciate your time today. And for all you out there that don't follow 4B Exchange, check them out online at 4BExchange.com. Follow them and check out all their cool listings and auctions online, but also make sure you follow them on all the social channels at 4B Exchange. And if you have any interest in selling your Classic Custom Modified Truck or 4x4, please head straight to Classic4x4.com. Classic. 4x4.com. Give me a call, shoot me an email, or fill out one of the forms on the website with some details on your truck. I'll do a full evaluation of it, tell you where it stands, and we can go from there. So I look forward to working with several listeners in the future, and I've been very fortunate to work with several of the listeners already at this point in representing their vehicles. So Brian, thanks a lot, man, and tell Jiminy Cricket, thank him also for joining us today. Yeah, on behalf of both of us, really appreciate you, Chris. Thank you. See you, bud.