Auto Dealer Monthly Magazine is the daily operations publication serving the retail automotive industry. This automotive publication serves dealer principals, officers and general managers with the latest best practices.
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industry expert / special finance
and you want to grow past 15 deals, you have no money to pay anyone else you may need to bring on board.
While structuring compensa- tion plans, keep in mind that the SF manager is generally the one responsible for structuring deals and holding gross profit. The salesperson is responsible for obtaining the credit history, collecting stips, showing appro- priate vehicles suggested by the desk and asking for down payment. When establishing compensation plans, keep those roles in perspective and reward each side commensurately.
Finally, be mindful of a common scenario in dealerships. Some dealerships actually make it a disincentive for a salesperson to sell or refer a SF deal because they pay less (often signifi- cantly) for a SF deal. This either causes the salesperson to try to push a deal through prime (which is nearly always a train wreck) or refer it to another dealership which pays hand- some referral fees (i.e., larger than your own commissions).
So now you have determined how many people you need, have an idea of where to find them and know how to pay them. All that is left is training. I hope you are up to the challenge, as most successful special finance dealers I have worked with train their staffs daily. Yes, I said daily. I know all the reasons why you think that it isn't possible, but somehow the dealership always makes time for the daily bank deposit. Why is it so hard to make time to train? Is it less important?
So how do you train? The method I used and recommend is simple. Keep the training meetings short (20 to 30 min- utes). They can be conducted by different people, even sales- people. At each meeting, work from a one-page,
three-hole-punched agenda (to go in each individual's training binder). Have three to five bullet points outlined on the page, and leave room for notes. Cover your training points and conclude. These are teaching and role-playing sessions, not carping or save-a-deal sessions. Those are handled separately.
What material do you use to teach with? For starters, you are holding in your hands a great source of material. Both this magazine and our online version, AutoDealer- Monthly.com, are filled with articles by dealers and industry experts from which to learn and teach. And they are free! Of course, there are a multi- tude of training workshops you can send SF personnel to, including the one I'm teaching entitled, "Special Finance Made Simple," this month (April 24 and 25) in Chicago Or the Subprime Conference Sept 10 to 12, held in Las Vegas.
The bottom line is that a training program doesn't have to be elaborate. It doesn't have to be expensive. It need not even include DVDs or videos. It just has to be done. Most importantly, it needs to be done in manageable bites and done consistently.
So there you have it. A staff defined, hired, paid and trained. Simple, huh? I realize that I have covered a highly complex component with more generali- ties than I prefer to. As always, questions are welcomed, and you can address them to Greg@AutoDealerMonthly.com.
Next issue I will cover the fourth Critical Component, the special finance companies.
Until then, Hire and train well!
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