Dealership Corridor
Recently, I had a typical conversation with a dealership general manager about his team’s performance. He struggled to understand why today’s environment makes it more imperative that his sales and F&I staff receive specialized training. With consumers feeling the financial pinch and arming themselves with as much online and comparative research, driving increased F&I revenue is a greater challenge. However, this GM felt like he could handle what he needed to in-house.
The retail automotive industry let out a collective cheer after reading the latest report from J.D. Power and GlobalData indicating that U.S. new vehicle retail sales are expected to rise 8.1% to 1.01 million units in February on an adjusted basis. Whoop! Finally, some good news!
The good news didn’t stop there. A strong retail sales pace, coupled with resiliently high average transaction prices, means that consumers will spend more money buying new vehicles in the month than any other February on record. Cue the celebration!
Innovation is one of those buzzwords that has, frankly, been overused lately. While once reserved for scions of industry like Henry Ford and Eli Whitney, today the concept of innovation is applied to any new product modification or brand positioning. But without true innovation – and the people who are driven every day to invent the next new thing – we would miss out on a lot of great ideas.
