Category: F&I

Overcoming Objections Starts with Sales

Post author By efgmarketing
Post date January 7, 2016

Contributing Author: Hollis Goode, Regional Vice President, Dealer Services, EFG Companies

Overcoming objections is quite possibly one aspect of the F&I office that is focused on the most. Classes abound on this topic. Dealers, in tune with their teams, provide one-on-one coaching sessions on this alone. After all, the more successful an F&I manager is at overcoming objections, the better their numbers, resulting in increased profit for the dealer.

I’d posit that many training courses/one-on-one sessions start something like this:

“The vehicle service contract is too expensive. Go.”

Tags dealership training, EFG Companies, F&I, F&I Presentation, F&I training, Hollis Goode, Overcoming Objections, sales training, vehicle sales

F&I

Are You Appealing to Millennials?

Post author By efgmarketing
Post date August 25, 2015

Contributing Author: Gabe Aldrete, Vice President, Dealer Services, EFG Companies

When you hear the term “Millennials” paired with the term “car,” what comes to mind? Do you automatically think, “Millennials aren’t interested in cars?” For the past few years, it seemed like a new article was published every month stating that the reason Millennials weren’t buying cars was due to personal preference.

Today, economics has proven that assertion false. According to J.D. Power & Associates, Millennials (those born between 1980 and 2004) accounted for 27 percent of new car sales in the U.S. last year. Millennials have already surpassed Generation X to become the second-largest group of new car buyers after Baby Boomers, and each year, the influence of the Baby Boomer generation recedes and Millennial buying power increases.

It turns out, personal preference had very little to do with Millennials approaching the auto industry. Rather, it had all to do with the economy, the job market, and wage growth. Most of the Millennials with buying power today entered the job market during the economic upheaval in the Great Recession. Because of the lack of prospects, some returned to school, while others moved in with parents or got roommates and stuck it out in low-paying or part-time jobs that did not utilize their post-high school training or education.

Tags Baby Boomers, Boomers, EFG, EFG Companies, F&I, Finance & Insurance, Gen X, Gen Y, Generation X, Generation Y, MAP, Millennials, Vehicle Return, vehicle service contract, vsc, WALKAWAY

F&I Reputation Management

How are You Profiting from Addressing Subprime Consumer Needs?

Post author By efgmarketing
Post date May 19, 2015

Contributing Author: John Stephens, Senior Vice President, Dealer Services, EFG Companies

As the nation continues to recover economically, we’ve seen the subprime market steadily expand. The debate rages on whether to slow or halt this expansion before a subprime bubble forms. Be that as it may, more people who experienced hardship over the last few years are returning to dealerships looking to replace their car, or get into a car for the first time.

For dealers, it’s easy to gain distance from the circumstances that drove more people into the subprime space and to only focus on numbers like PRU, penetration, sales volume, etc. But, as you evaluate your dealership’s future, it’s time to step back and take a deeper look at what consumers are dealing with.

Yes, the unemployment rate has dropped, but that does not mean everyone who lost their job in the recession have returned to a comparable position. The most recent report from the Bureau of Labor and Statistics states that 6.6 million Americans are classified as “involuntary part-time workers” – those working part-time jobs due to economic reasons.

Tags EFG, EFG Companies, Hyundai Assurance, John Stephens