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Training

Selling Cash Down

Hollis Goode Regional Vice President EFG Companies
Contributing Author:
Hollis Goode
Regional Vice President
EFG Companies

How comfortable is your sales team with asking for cash down payments on every transaction?

With the plethora of $0 down advertising, it’s become more commonplace for customers to expect to put $0 down on their vehicles. However, as any F&I manager will tell you, this makes it more difficult to secure a loan that is beneficial to both the dealership and the customer.

Take a look at the deals coming to the F&I office. If more than 20% of those deals are for $0 down, then there is a breakdown between your sales staff and the F&I desk.

Granted, the sales team might find it difficult to broach the subject. After getting a “no” once, they might give up, assuming they can’t negotiate. This mindset needs to be overcome in the same way you train your sales people to ask for the sale and negotiate the sale price. The more training and information you give your sales people, the less anxiety they have when asking for the sale, for a down payment, for a trade-in value, etc.

Remember, it is always better to ask than to assume the answer is no. After all, we all know what assuming makes out of you and me.

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EFG Companies

EFG Companies and F&I Express Expand Digital Solutions for Automotive Dealerships

F&I ExpressEFG Companies, the innovator behind the award-winning Hyundai Assurance Program, and F&I Express, the largest automotive F&I aftermarket product network, announced today a partnership to better serve their dealership clients by fully integrating their eContracting capabilities.

“At EFG Companies, we understand that no two dealers are the same,” said John Pappanastos, President and CEO of EFG Companies. “Each dealer operates with different goals, success metrics, and systems, and we pride ourselves in acting as a strategic partner in their success. In our effort to further that initiative, we partnered with F&I Express to augment our growing list of e-contracting solutions with one of the most utilized eContracting platforms in the market.”

“For almost 40 years, EFG Companies has been leading innovation within the automotive industry,” said Brian Reed, President and CEO of F&I Express. “We have been eagerly anticipating their addition to our F&I eContracting network and look forward to bringing their products to our dealer customers.”

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Compliance Dealership Training

Juggling the Compliance Acronym Soup: CFPB, ECOA, FCRA

Contributing Author: Steve Roennau Vice President Compliance EFG Companies
Contributing Author:
Steve Roennau
Vice President
Compliance
EFG Companies

Compliance has been a hot topic going on three years in the auto finance space. Lenders, such as Ally Financial, Toyota Motor Credit, and the American Honda Finance Corporation, have reached resolutions with the CFPB based upon dealership practices. We’ve all known that the CFPB has been trying to regulate dealerships through lenders. With this heightened sensitivity to compliance, other regulatory bodies that have jurisdiction over automotive dealerships, such as the FTC, are now turning their gaze to dealership practices.

While everyone is frustrated with the ambiguity of the CFPB, there are some well-defined actions dealerships can take to ensure compliance with entities like the FTC. With this in mind, now is the time for dealers to brush up on their F&I practices to ensure compliance, starting with this simple question: When a dealership sells a car and secures financing, who is the creditor at the time of sale?

If you said the dealer is the creditor, you would be correct. However, many F&I managers often think that the lender is the creditor. This mindset opens the door for non-compliant behavior as the F&I manager could think that their actions have fewer repercussions. As a dealer who knows about the legal repercussions, wouldn’t you rather have an informed staff that takes accountability for their actions?