Special Finance Superstar - June 2008

Describe your duties as Finance Director at Buchanan Auto Park …

 I desk probably 95 to 100 percent of every single deal. I’m a working finance director. Most finance directors are on the back side of it and they review the deals and make sure their F&I people are getting their percentage in back-end products; I’m basically a used car manager, sales manager, F&I manager and finance director, all in one. I also deliver every car unless I’m not here, and then I have an assistant that’ll help me, but I’m pretty much here all the time.

How do you manage to keep your funding timeline between two and three days?

I check contract status and funding status daily. I dot my i’s and cross my t’s.

The number of SF units sold at Buchanan has doubled since you took over the SF operation. How did you accomplish this?

There was no team atmosphere up here. We’re a team now. We have the right individuals in place, which took a little bit of time … and then it’s just consistency on a daily basis.

How often do you address training for the department?

We have a contract with Tom [Herald]. He comes in here at least once a month for three or four days and looks at what we need to concentrate on. He also does a one-on-one with every single one of the sales staff, getting their feedback and listening to them.

You said there was no team atmosphere in the SF department when you started. How have you created that atmosphere?

The accountability factor. They know what their jobs are, they know I’m going to hold them accountable to it, and we work as a team. We’re pretty much a family atmosphere up here now, and they know that I’m going to stop what I’m doing to help them sell a car, no matter what.

What else do you do to help your department excel?

We conduct weekly meetings on Saturday mornings, but I also have individual meetings with every salesperson on the daily activity reports. Consistency and proficiency are the biggest things in this business.

How do you generate enough traffic to sell an average of 80 vehicles every month?

We have probably seven or eight different lead sources; we also have our Web site where people go to apply [for financing], not counting advertising in newspaper, radio, things like that. A lot of our business is referral business; most of the banks need at least five to seven complete references from every customer for the subprime department, so we have a lead source from that also.

Is it a higher priority these days to maintain good relationships with your banks and finance companies?

Absolutely, because the market has tightened up so much … I have had a couple of banks pull out … it’s all about your relationships with your banks and your rapport with your analysts on the other end.

What do you do to help keep those relationships on good terms?

I structure every single deal the right way. I don’t submit every deal as a payment call. Anybody who’s been in this industry long enough knows that it’s better for you to structure on a certain vehicle, so it’ll tier better in the computer system on their end. If you have to switch vehicles, then you can call them back and rehash, rather than submitting it as a payment call. That’s the lazy way of doing things.

How do you plan to keep sales at their current levels?

Doing what we’re doing. Accountability from the sales staff all the way up to management, myself included. It’s consistency and conformity, and the people that want to be on the team and work as a team will be here; the ones that do not, will not. Period.

Vol. 2, Issue 3