Maintaining close contact with lenders allows you to stay up to date on their programs and potentially secure deals they otherwise would not get. Getting out of the office prevents burnout and complacency, while also allowing you to assist salespeople with difficult deals. Becoming involved early in the deal process lets you structure deals appropriately and catch any paperwork issues up front to speed up the financing process. Being particular about all deal details from trade-ins to insurance and having a second set of eyes review everything can help expedite the process for customers and your team. Keeping detailed logs of productivity allows you to identify good habits and areas for improvement.

1. Becoming Involved at the Desk
Maintainingclose contact withyour lenders and lending competition:
Lenders want to make the car loan to high FICO, repeat customers. (And typically work extra hard to
get the opportunity) Keep up to date with all lenders and their incentivized programs from month to
month. This can sometimes set a lender a part who would not normally get a chance to buy the deal.
Get out of the office:
The biggest enemyof productivity and success if burnout and complacency.Boredom can quickly
enhance the rate at which an individual is “burnt out”. If you are not with a customer, talking with a
bank, or finalizing paperwork to send-off,get out to the sales floor. Go talk with the salespeople.
Maybe they’ve had some trouble getting a particular customer to call back, or come back to the
dealership. Offer to make that tough call for them. Take a look at their deal and see if you can
suggest some alternatives to what they’ve tried.
Set F&I up for success throughstructure and paperwork:
Ensuring your sales managers send perfect paperwork to the box is a daily struggle. Becoming
involved early on in the deal not only allows you to have a say in how the deal is structured, but also
checkingall paperwork up front. This minimizes the time you spend reviewing for the third time in
the Finance Office.Each deal should have some type of checklist ensuring that a manager has put
eyeson the deal, and to their knowledge, theyare attesting to perfect paperwork.
Clean paperwork is a very crucial part of time spent preparing a deal to paper in the office.The
quicker and more accurate you become,typically the more effective you are with the customers. No
one enjoys waiting half an hour to do paperwork, which can be intimidating in itself.
BE PARTICULAR!
Beinginvolved at the desk and early on in the deal ensures that all details are paid attention to twice
as much.Whetherit is correctand exacttrade payoffs, to insurance verifications- a second set of
eyescan speed up the entire process for a customer. (And your team!)
Keep a Log:
Keepa daily, weekly and evenmonthly log of your productivity. Compare eachday or week to
identify good habits and things that have helpedyour department and the desk become more
effective at working together,as well as a month to month review. Continuing to identify and weed
out the bad habits will help create and maintain a streamlined process that everyone can be held
accountable to.