Dealership Development, LLC Blog

In order to make sure your sales team is serious about making your dealership successful they need to be armed with the right tools. The following are a few training tips that will get your team motivated to sell, retain customers, and upsell contracts while adding some value to your business.

A Listener Is a Closer

A sense of hearing is the most important sense a salesperson can cultivate. They need to listen to the customer and not just 

Any F&I department understands that a lot of pressure comes with the territory due to sales expectations, but are you helping your team succeed to the best of their ability? Are you offering the best F&I products available for your target market and are you taking the time to train your team for all the changing demands?

If your F&I department keeps missing the mark on the latest trends, it's time to get some help.

Are you reviewing your monthly numbers only to discover that your contracts in transit are in the upper six figures? Contracts in transit-or CIT-are when a contract to fulfill a car loan isn't paid in full due to various circumstances. Either the person who bought the car can't make payments immediately, or there's a hang-up in the transit of money.

All of this can signifcantly affect your cash flow and place you in financial jeopardy.

Not long ago, purchasing and selling online was something very few knew how to do. However, selling online has shown new, customized, and varied ways of performing a simple task and has resulted in efficiency, innovation, and a higher earning rate. Online selling has become the answer to those who are looking for an item they can’t find locally. It has been even more convenient for people who have a limited amount of time and for those who—due to different limitations—cannot physically visit a store.

Have you ever looked up vehicle service contracts in a search engine? The top articles and posts you will find are filled with words like, scam or skip, and most of your customers are reading these articles before they even walk in your door.

This puts your dealership at an immediate disadvantage at the negotiating table, which is why understanding how to properly position your vehicle service agreements to car buyers is so important.

A decade ago if a customer lost their car keys it wasn't a big deal. They could call a locksmith or go to almost any hardware store and get a new car key for relatively little money. Unfortunately, car keys can now be very costly to replace. 

It has often been said that any company's best asset is its employees. Successful companies have recognized and implemented that truth into their business models. Every staff and organization has individuals who can be utilized in particular roles with great success. There are also among those members, some special talent. A considerable portion of a company's growth and success can be attributed to finding that talent early. Grooming those people to lead and step into financial services and management roles benefits everyone.

Life is full of surprises and unfortunately, not all of those are pleasant. Having to suddenly come up with $1,000 or more for an unexpected bill definitely qualifies as unpleasant. While we all like to think that one-thousand dollars is semi-manageable, but the truth of the matter is that more Americans would have trouble coming up with that money on the spot, than you'd think.

Your F&I department is ever-changing, and it is important to stay ahead of the game. You need the knowledge, the familiarity, and the skills from experience. You need to keep abreast of the latest developments and industry trends that keep the finance & insurance department healthy and successful.

No matter what the changes to the industry, or your own dealership, there are a few core ideas that build a successful F&I department.

Throughout 2016 we found BIG improvements amongst our clients who are keeping up with the ever growing list of strict government regulations that are put on car dealers today.  From installing safeguarding policies to regular auditing and training, these dealers are finding that not only are they keeping themselves and consumers’ safe from thieves looking to steal their confidential private information, they are turning a profit by enforcing compliance in their finance department, one example of this is through proper menu use, presenting the menu to every customer, 100% of the time.