Your weekly checklist to become an exceptional F&I manager or director and reap the rewards.
F&I managers weekly checklist to stay on track and profitable:
A wise man once said success comes from curiosity, concentration, perseverance, and self-criticism. Yes, the wise man was none other than Albert Einstein. He could not speak until he was four and did not read until he was seven. However, his curiosity and diligence brought him success. If you never failed, you are yet to learn some crucial lessons in life. But if you did, you are smarter than before and know how to better manage a hurdle you stumbled upon earlier. Often, we get caught up in minor details and overlook setting priorities. With that in mind, the F&I department is challenging, as always. It is a never-ending list of to-dos, from handling customers’ questions and objections, endless paperwork to managing your team, lenders, and financial goals. Therefore, creating a weekly checklist for F&I managers could help staying on track and profitable.
All things considered, we have handpicked ten essential strategies you could implement every week to help you succeed in your role and exceed your financial goals. Here is F&I managers weekly checklist:
1. Attend and conduct weekly F&I and sales training:
Weekly sales and F&I meetings will help you and your team stay updated and efficient. Moreover, conducting weekly training would present you with an opportunity to address issues with current practices through methods such as role-plays. Additionally, taking support of result-driven F&I trainers would build your staff’s confidence and techniques, thus, improving your bottom line. Therefore, conducting training should be a priority on your weekly to-do list.
2. Conduct save-a-deal meetings:
Each week, take time to review dead deals with other managers to identify solutions and see if there is a way to go. Review the three C’s of credit. Namely:
- Character—defined by credit and loan repayment history.
- Capacity- measures income and ability to service a loan or line of credit.
- Collateral- asset(s) in this case, the car you have them on.
Therefore, a fresh set of eyes and ideas with your colleagues could help you find constructive outcomes and raise your dealership’s profitability.
3. Promote a positive team culture:
As the manager, ensure that you have a solid team to help you attain your departmental and financial goals. Building and nurturing a positive work culture could involve simple steps such as setting clear goals, promoting inclusion, and allowing a place for humor. As Dale Carnegie said, “People rarely succeed unless they are having fun in what they are doing.”
4. Maintain and employ a winning mindset:
Reading and getting inspired by books and articles would put you on the road to developing a growth mindset. However, it would help if you practiced it every day to accelerate results. For example, when you meet a customer ready to pay in cash, do you feel this person would not be interested in buying F&I products or could not afford to purchase the products? Adopting a genuinely optimistic mindset and renouncing a fixed mindset every day at work would help you grow in your profession while attaining your financial objectives.
5. Reassess market changes and profit centers:
Being updated with the market shift and trends and aligning your F&I portfolio to match the customers’ needs require regular consideration. Carefully monitoring your portfolio will keep you adequately equipped to serve your customers and stay relevant in the market. For instance, if lending tightens or interest rates rise, how does that affect dealer reserve? How would the sales & financing process change?
6. Embrace customer-centric approach:
The right words at the right time and the right products matching your customers’ needs make all the difference. Significantly, strong customer-centricity with customer-oriented products, would positively influence customer service and ultimately improve customer satisfaction. Hence, every week practice your positive words and values. To emphasize, repetitions aid reinforcement of your values. So, fix a time every week to cultivate and strengthen a customer-centric attitude for guaranteed success.
7. Invest in yourself and your team:
Interacting with like-minded industry leaders and investing in rich content- such as podcasts, books, articles would help you stay focused on the game and ahead of the curve. Additionally, meeting regularly with your subordinates to set goals and discuss challenges would make them feel valued and reduce turnover. Moreover, it will help you identify their shortcoming and find solutions to overcome them. You should consider doing this every week for your continued growth.
8. Update tech tools knowledge and review reports:
With more young shoppers, using digital tools is critical to your success. Adapting the technology to save your customers time and enhance their experience would add a lot of value to your dealership. In addition, making use of data and reports would help you make better decisions. However, proficiency in new tools and dashboards requires a willingness to learn and continuous practice. Refresher courses and training improve skills and could make you a pro. Notably, setting time aside to pep up your skills would help you move ahead faster.
9. Refresh your relations with lending institutions, VSC provider, and insurance vendors:
Many buyers look for financing options when buying a car. While the consumers can get auto financing from a bank or credit union, it could be cumbersome and perhaps on less favorable terms. Having a positive relationship with your lenders will enable you to get special financing approved for your customers. In addition, it could significantly help improve your customer’s experience and satisfaction. It is essential to consider that building and nurturing positive relationships with lenders, VSC providers, and insurance vendors do not happen overnight. In other words, staying connected with them and maintaining your network would require frequent communication. Therefore, setting up time every week to strengthen your network is a beneficial idea.
10. Give back- Mentor or Coach:
With years of knowledge and experience in the auto industry, you could give back by helping junior talent raise their performance and succeed in their job. To enumerate, a good mentor allows a mentee to make decisions that help them reach their target. In contrast, a great mentor develops a mentees confidence in a way that less direction or assurance is needed from others. Surprisingly, when the mentor/mentee relationship transitions into a partnership, you would end up learning from them equally. Hence, take time every week to coach a young professional.
The checklist of essential to-dos would help you manage your priorities while progressing in your job. PRO Consulting is here to help you navigate daily challenges and enhance the productivity of your department. For more details or to get answers to your unique questions, take advantage of our free consultation program.
The F&I managers weekly checklist is a glimpse of how you could attain higher profits. We have been conducting F&I training and consultation for over three decades, we can help you grow in your field and increase your commissions. Contact us today for custom solutions for your F&I department and dealership profitability.