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The Automotive Software                                                                             Dec 22rd, 2020 Article

3 Things You Can Do That Will Automatically Make You The Favorite Finance Manager...

And How To Do Them...

By Philip Cheatham Dec 22nd 2020

  • Have an open door: I once saw the exact opposite of the picture I want to present. A Finance Manager, with 2 signs on his door. One sign instructing salespeople to knock, and be granted entry before walking into his office. The other sign instructing anybody from the back office to leave him alone. It said: "you will get my deals when they're ready, unless you want to help me pack them." I remember this well, he told me "if they want my deals so bad, they can come here, grab them and finish them for me." He then explained to me every way the world was trying to get him in this moment. It was a pretty hilarious sight to see, I've laughed quite a bit about it. This real finance manager is still at the same dealership, doing the same thing and I really like him, on a personal level. He's quite the character, I always enjoy seeing him. And as you can imagine, he definitely keeps me guessing. The behavior he gets away with however, and I've told him, is depressing and sad. It's depressing that other people have to deal with it day in and day out. I have told him that he wouldn't get away with it for a day inside my dealership. He seems to think that he makes up for it, buying things for people. When you move up the chain, more people don't work for you, you work for more people, or you're doing it all wrong. This should be understood. Everything else is immaturity. Salespeople are the last people in the store that you should be too busy to help. Look, I understand, you're stressed, they suck and can do things sometimes that seem to lack any insight. My pet peeve and 1st rule for all salespeople, when I'm working a finance office is that you are absolutely never to disturb me with customers in my office. This is imperative. So for salespeople that walk in F+I offices with customers in them, you almost deserve something physical. Kidding, but it is that serious. If you've never done F+I, maybe you don't understand, but you can cost this manager $1,000 in a second. Every F+I manager knows what Im talking about and agrees. If you haven't done F+I, just respect we all say this same fact. However as an F+I manager, without an actual live customer in your office, you should be happy to interact and help your salespeople to the extreme and at all times. You want to be the guy they all come to for help, questions, advice etc. You must have an open door. You must embrace salespeople asking you for things. If the other Finance Managers don't do this, even better for you. Without salespeople, as a Finance Manager, you have no money. Don't bring that up Phil! Their training is your paycheck. Making sure they listen to you, because you give them things in the form of help, training and respect, is your job. Leadership isn't in a title, it's something that happens as a result of actions, and its earned. I never treated salespeople from the Finance Office as if I was their superior. This was probably easier for me, considering I was in Finance at 21 years old. The 30 salespeople in the dealership I was in, all had more experience than me in the car business. I was also back in Finance at 32 years old. I have always looked at it as if, I am working for the dealership, my wallet of course, but first and foremost the salesperson. This is their deal. If you help them feel at ease while you have their deal and they like you, you will be able to get a lot more out of them, which makes your real job of maximizing gross on each deal easier. And of course, the most obvious for last, is that when you treat the salespeople this way, they will go out of their way sometimes to help you, and you know what that can mean. Don't ever be rude to salespeople from the Finance Office. Its unnecessary. They don't need to be taught through aggression by you. They need to be helped with all you've learned to get to your position, where you actually get to make money on the deals they create! Give them that respect and you will get the respect you've always wanted and truly deserve. I promise. 
  • 2nd Face Deals: I hear so much more about this than I ever see it done in practice. Which means, the opportunity you have to become the favorite Finance Manager in any dealership is huge. Just imagine any Finance Manager telling a closer or a Sales Manager: "Hey let me take a swing at him before you let him go." Even, if you don't close the deal, the random act of doing this, is huge for how you are perceived. Don't do it arrogantly. Do it from a place of genuinely wanting to help your peers, your front line salesperson that maybe spent all day trying to sell a car or a bike. If you can get the customer back to a table working and get anywhere near a deal, don't let your desk structure your deal. Tell your desk "hey I wanted to do this for Gary, I watched him bust his ass with these customers all day, but that shouldn't hurt me, so please structure this one for me boss." Most Desk Managers will. They should realize, that if you are going to successfully 2nd face and T.O. deals, that you're only going to keep doing it, if it doesn't screw you over. Tell them that too: "I'd love to help you guys close deals up here, but I don't want to send myself bullets." Work something out. First, you have to demonstrate you can. First, you have to know whats happening at the sales desk. If you are a GM reading this, your F+I guys need a desk-log thats actually used by your sales desk. Even, the F+I guys that would laugh at me writing this, will 2nd face your subprime deal that they know they can put together with back end, or the customer they sold everything to, 2 years ago. They can't do that if they don't have an accurate view of whats happening in the showroom. Start FREE 14 Day Trial Now of the Daily Desk with simple tutorials to get you started here. If your finance guy never knows the customer is here, while the customer is here, you may never see the customer again. I was in finance at some of the best ran stores in the country. I can't count how many times I got a subprime deal approved after sales let the deal go. Let me help you fix this in your dealership. The only reason I wrote this article you are reading now, is because Central Desking fixed this and more. Regardless, as a Finance Manager, you have to be looking for ways to help sales, not just yourself. If you are killing it, sometimes taking a bullet for the desk, is the best thing you can do, for the perception of your strength and the way you do your job. Create a bullet for sales, then take it and never complain. The only people that won't love you for doing this, are the other Finance Managers. Always raise the bar without hesitation, don't let others hold your bar or your greatness down. Every experienced Sales Manager has had multiple finance guys block their deals or mess up their deals on purpose, because they didn't want a zero. If you take a zero or make a zero happen, then take it for the team, you will be perceived as strong. Think about it. They'll probably save you another one later on, wink. You can't fake intentions. We all read between the lines with each other. You must genuinely want to help people, respect them and want them to do well, to receive the same in return. This is the secret sauce to leadership, so of course your F@(*(*#) door is wide open lol. Get a Grip to some of you! You need these classes in your life. I promise a solid tune-up and a new take on your existence as an F+I guy. I teach the perfect interview, a custom pitch, custom menu planning and menu diagnostics to close an extra product per deal. I'll also get you another half product per deal, using the optional product disclosure form. The pro's that know these secrets, won't teach them to you. I didn't share them myself for years.
  • Don't ever ever ever let a customer wait: I usually don't curse in my articles. I wanted to start this one with wtf. Seriously, I should never have to write about this. I could sadly however, sit down and write an entire book on this subject alone. I have enough real life stories to illustrate the stupidity, that I could probably write an entire series on this. I mean what the hell? Well, you know what, I don't want to be mean, so lets start at where your job starts: Your job as an F+I manager starts when the customer signs whatever you have them sign to commit to a deal and buy or lease a vehicle. You may be saying, Phil, I have no idea thats happened for 30 minutes sometimes after it happened. Ahhhhh, yes, well you are right here Mr. F+I God! Absolutely, you need to know when the customer signs if thats your deal. This is a process issue inside your dealership if you don't. You need a desk-log that works to do this with ease.  Start FREE 14 Day Trial Now of the Daily Desk with simple tutorials to get you started here. Our Central Desking Desk-log. This is nuts honestly. So heres what happens when you don't have a process in place for this: Your customer signs to buy, their time now slows down to nail biting anxiety land. The customer has no idea that you, the big bad F+I guy they are waiting for is more scared of them than they are of you. Wait, you don't even know this deal exists. Your sales desk hasn't put the paperwork together, because they got stuck on the phone. Your F+I and sales desk don't have an active desk-log, so F+I doesn't even know this deal exists. Using an active desk log, F+I will see this deal as soon as it gets to paper. What needs to happen here, so you don't turn all your deals into a low PVR mess, is you need to be conducting you interviews as quickly as possible after they say yes. Imagine a late night deal and you're up at the desk etc. Did you ever notice the better report you had in those instances with the customer in general? Even though, you need to get home to your wife or husband lol? That time from when they sign to the time you hopefully greet them and do my killer interview I teach here, is the same as the dmv and the doctors office. Think of waiting for things that are scary. Thats what the customer is going through. Guess what happens when they ask whats "taking so long" or "how long will this take?" in most dealerships? Well, the salesperson you were supposed to spend time with to avoid this, tells your customer "that guys doing your paperwork" and points at you. You are now "that guy", "the reason they waited," whether thats true or not. You aren't selling anything in most cases now. Even if your dealership is messed up, its partly your job to fix this and make sure that when a customer thinks they're waiting for you, you know and that the desk gets you what you need before you go interview the customer. Once again I teach everything from this interview on to getting them the hell out of your office. I teach this for a reason. I teach this and much more here. Back to talking about this time that exists between your customers agreeing to numbers and the F+I Manager interviewing them. You need to make your GM aware that you have an issue here, if this is outside of your control. It's costing your entire dealership money, efficiency, CSI, morale and improved skills among your staff if there isn't a strict process in place for your F+I turnovers. Again you can do this with ease using our Central Desking Desk-log available FREE for 14 days here, with quick easy tutorials inside. Either way, you need to make sure you don't let your customer wait. Its truly crazy. You are not an F+I professional, under any circumstances if for any reason you have the ability to shorten this time and don't. The perfect window and expectation of most customers these days is around 5 minutes for Tier 1 service. They will be pleasantly surprised if you let them wait in this dreaded zone for 5 minutes or less in most cases. Please fix this if its an issue in your dealership. Its important for everybody in your store, your bottom line, dealership morale and your CSI. Woooooooooooooowzers!

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