The Badass Car Seller’s Steps to Acquiring Cars
I will prepare and some day my chance will come.
— Abraham Lincoln — Lincoln’s quote is the BACON method in 8 words.
Knowing where to find a good car is one skill. Knowing how to walk in the door and buy it for less than it is worth is another. I have watched buyers with cash in their pocket leave without the car because they showed up wrong. The car seller who sources well has already won half the battle before the vehicle ever reaches a listing.
The process I built over years of buying has five parts. I call it B.A.C.O.N.
Bring Home the B.A.C.O.N.
Sourcing cars and convincing owners to sell them cheap became my specialty as the lot on Bailey Avenue grew. The rule I built my sourcing process around had five parts:
- Be First
- Arrive Prepared
- Cash on Hand
- Own the Title (Lien-free of course)
- Nice (Be nice, smile, agree, admire)
Why It Works
- Speed (B/A): You cannot buy what someone else already snagged. Being first and prepared (plates, tools, bill of sale) wins the race.
- Liquidity (C): Cash eliminates the "let me check with my bank" friction that kills deals.
- Security (O): If the title is not clean and in your hand, you do not have a flip. You have a headache.
- Reputation (N): People sell to people they like, and we all like nice people. Being the "easy" buyer gets you the call-back for their next car.
Lets Dig Deeper
B.
Being first means you call the moment you see the listing. Not after lunch. Not when you finish whatever you are doing. The moment you see it, you call. What if you do not have a number, just a Facebook Marketplace listing? Same rule applies: message quickly, and not with the standard "is it still available?" More like: "I have cash, will come immediately and take it off your hands. Where do you want to meet?"
Being fast means when you show up, you show up ready to buy. You have cash and you have done enough research to know your number. You do not kick tires and leave.
A.
Arriving prepared shows you know what you are doing. When you show up confident and present a lower number, you are believable. Being prepared means you have a way to get the vehicle home: a car hauler, a second driver with a dealer plate. For tow operators, a flatbed or snatch truck. For private buyers, it is a little trickier. My go-to method is to ask the seller to deliver it, since their plates are probably still on it. I usually agree to the price, then say: "Let's make it $100 less, but would you mind delivering it to my house? It is only 5 miles away." Being prepared also means the simple things: tools to remove their plates, a permanent marker for the title signature, and a bill of sale pad to get the receipt.
C.
Bringing cash is an obvious one. Sellers do not trust you enough to take your check, and you do not want to be undersold by a competitor who is ready to pay cash. If you do not have enough, seal the deal with a deposit and a receipt that reads something like:
- Price of car: $5,000
- $500 cash deposit, paid March 17th
- $4,500 due by March 20th
O.
What does owning the title process mean? Simply put, you should know how the title works in your state, where the seller needs to sign, and you should take your time getting it signed correctly. One mistake here could mean weeks waiting for the DMV to send a replacement title.
Know what a lien looks like, and know what a lien release looks like if the seller has one.
If you are buying from an impound yard or dealer, know what title type they are giving you. Is it a title, a lien sale certificate, or a dismantler-only document? A dismantler-only document means you cannot retail that vehicle. You can only sell its parts. More on this later.
N.
Being nice means you treat the seller the way you would want to be treated if you were selling something you cared about. Most of the time, people are not just selling a car. They are selling something that meant something to them, something they enjoyed for years. No need to make light of that.
Being nice means showing up on time, respecting their time and property, and speaking to everyone involved. I have watched many a deal fall apart because the buyer ignored the wife or kids during the introductions.
Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity.
— Seneca — The Stoic philosopher describes the entire B.A.C.O.N. method as preparation meeting opportunity. Simple… Right?
Going Outbound
Every sourcing method covered so far puts you in a reactive position. You see a listing. You call first. You show up prepared. You win the car.
That works. But the best car buyers I have known did not wait for listings. They made the phone ring.
The simplest way to go outbound is a Facebook Marketplace ad that says exactly what you are. Three words cover it: We Buy Everything. Not we buy clean cars, not we buy specific makes and models. Everything. You want every seller in your area to think of you first when they have a vehicle they need to move.
The ad does not need to be complicated. A photo of cash, a phone number, and a short line that tells the seller what they get. Fast pickup. Cash same day. No hassle. That last word matters more than most buyers realize. Selling a car privately is a headache. The seller has to deal with strangers, low-ball offers, no-shows, and buyers who want to negotiate by text for three days. You are the option that makes all of that go away.
Run the ad consistently. A Facebook Marketplace ad that runs for one week and disappears generates one week of calls. An ad that runs every month generates a pipeline. Sellers who saw your ad two months ago and did not need you then will call you when the situation changes. A transmission dies. A registration expires. A second car appears in the driveway and there is no room for the old one. Keep the ad up and keep the phone number the same.
Price your ads honestly. Do not promise top dollar if you are buying at wholesale. Promise speed, certainty, and no games. Sellers who want top dollar will try Craigslist or Facebook Marketplace first and call you when that does not work. When they call, you are ready and the car is still available.
The response rate on a well-written We Buy Everything ad surprises most first-time buyers. People have cars they want gone and no idea who to call. You are the answer they needed before they knew to look for it.
Building Your Own Pipeline, Impound Edition
The most successful impound operation I work with does not wait for cars to come in on a hook. They go buy them.
Every truck in their fleet carries the same message on the door panel. Four words and a promise: “We Buy Junk, Free tow.” No phone number negotiation, no Craigslist back-and-forth, no seller trying to get three opinions before they decide. The owner of that junk car calls the number on the door, the tower shows up, pays cash on the spot, (checks the title) and hauls the car back to the yard for free.
That message can generate 10-15% of their monthly auction inventory. On a yard moving 80 units a month, that is eight additional cars they bought off the street and ran through Autura. Eight cars that cost them a cash payment and a tow, sold through competitive bidding to a pool of buyers who pushed the price past what any single street buyer would have offered.
The math works exactly the same way as any other impound unit. The tower buys the car for $300 cash and tows it for free. The car runs through Autura and draws 12 bids. It hammers at $1,150. After the platform fee, the tower clears $750 on a car they bought the same morning. That is not a home run. That is a consistent, repeatable process that adds real revenue without adding headcount or changing anything about the operation.
The truck door is the ad. The tow is the pickup service. The auction is the exit. The whole cycle runs in under a week because you already have the title.
For towers reading this, look at your fleet as a moving billboard. Every truck driving through a neighborhood is passing people with dead cars in their driveways, expired registrations sitting at the curb, and inherited vehicles they have no idea what to do with. A five-word message on the door tells every one of those people exactly who to call.
The title process on a street-purchased vehicle is different from a lien sale impound. You are buying directly from the owner, so the title transfer is straightforward. The seller signs the title over at the time of purchase and you take possession clean. Know your state's rules on dealer licensing for purchased vehicles as distinct from towed impounds. In most states, buying and reselling vehicles at volume requires a dealer license regardless of how you acquired them. If you are already licensed, this pipeline is pure upside. If you are not, check the Compliance chapter before you scale it up.
The Bacon Method, in the Field
I was about to go out for drinks with my girlfriend, my future wife, when the latest classifieds dropped. I immediately noticed a 1976 Cadillac Eldorado Convertible listed for sale. The 1976 was the last of the full-size American convertibles for many a decade. Cadillac stopped making the convertible after 1976 and made a public event of the change, making it an instant collector's item. Collectors and car enthusiasts like me knew the car well. Most sellers did not. Advantage: me.
I called the number. No answer. I called again. No answer. I kept calling, every hour or two. I even left my date to call again. Over three days, I must have called 25 times. Most people would have moved on. I did not.
On Sunday morning, out of frustration, I let the phone ring for 20 rings. To my surprise, an old woman answered. She sounded out of breath. It turned out she was in her 80s, and she could not reach the phone fast enough before other callers hung up. She had been there the whole time. Every other caller had given up.
I learned that her husband had bought the car brand new in 1976. He died one month later. The car went into the barn and stayed there for 13 years. She did not know how many miles it had or if mice were living in it.
We agreed to meet an hour later. She met me at her door, holding a walker and smelling of pee and mothballs. But she was the coolest old lady with lots of stories to tell. It was hard to hide my excitement for the car, but I knew she needed to be heard. I could write a book just on the be-nice part of the Bacon Method. Listening is the nicest thing you can do.
Eventually she handed me a padlock key and pointed to the barn out in a field behind her home.
It was not exactly like you see in the YouTube barn find shows, because the barn was empty except for the magnificent Eldi.
Besides years of dust and grime, the exterior looked great. The interior was as close to factory condition as anything I had ever seen. Only the convertible top showed wear from years of dry rot. Then the biggest surprise: the odometer read 180 miles. A number that, if you have read my other Badass Book, has significant meaning to me. So much so, it is my only tattoo. 180°.
When I went back up to the house, she had made tea and invited me in. After some time together she told me that she wanted it gone but did not have the heart to sell it all these years. She said it made her sad every time she thought about it because her husband was so happy when he bought it. I knew I could not fall in love with the car, this woman, or get wrapped up in the emotion of the story. So I offered $8,000 in cash and said I would take it immediately.
She looked me up and down for a long second, as if gauging whether I deserved her husband's baby, then nodded slowly in agreement.
Every letter of the Badass Car Seller’s creed worked that day. I was first. I was prepared. I had cash. I left with a clean title. And I was nice enough to sit down for tea and listen to her stories.
To Summarize
Be first, arrive prepared, bring cash, own the title process, and be nice.
- Speed wins the car before another buyer shows up.
- Cash closes the deal without friction.
- A clean title in your hand is the only title worth buying.
- And people sell to people they like.
The buyer who listens, shows up on time, and treats the seller with respect gets the call-back on the next car too.
