Special Finance Superstar - January 2009

Gary Conlee

Describe your typical day.
To start off my day, I have a managers’ meeting that starts at 9:00 a.m. every morning. During this time, I try to go over deals that we looked at the day before to find any kind of deals that need to be rehashed or restructured and try to go through those first. Next, I go through  our CRM tool, and look for opportunities that were there yesterday or maybe two days ago that I or one of the other used car managers need to follow up with. I’m go through our inventory, I’ll get online and do an auction tomorrow; one guy actually goes in person and I try to sit online and help him with that. It seems to work well for us.

What’s the advantage to attending an auction online when you already have someone there in person?
During the auction, if there are three or four cars that he wants in one lane and he’s got some others that are coming through about the same time [in another lane], I can be online, switch it to that lane and try to get them. It just helps us pick up three or four cars that we would have possibly missed. 
 

“Gary inspects what he expects and in this tough credit climate you have to someone as sharp as Gary on every deal.” – J.P. Miller, Executive Vice President, Paul Miller Auto Group Gary Conlee Pre-Owned Sales Director/Special Finance Manager 18 Years Dealership Experience 12 Years in Special Finance Dealership Stats: Paul Miller Ford Lexington, Kentucky Average SF Deals per Month: 25 SF Average Days to Fund: 8 SF Sales to SF Leads: 30% SF Sales to Total Sales: 19%

How’s your special finance department set up?
Right now everything is run through this department. At one time we had a closed floor, but now it’s open to all salespeople … they just work a customer and if it’s a special finance deal they bring it to me or another used car manager I have here …we sit side by side and if it’s a special finance deal we have a conversation on how we’re going to structure the deal and who we’re going to send it to.

The market has changed a lot in the last year. What kinds of adjustments have you made to try and compensate for it?
I think like everybody else we’ve trimmed down. They’ve had to tighten the belt on both expenses and personnel. We downsized—I guess right-sized is the word for it—right-sized to 27 salespeople where we used to be 40 to 45.

Are you planning any changes to the special finance department?
No, we’re just trying to add a few lenders. I don’t like to have 20 of them … I’d rather have four or five that you could really build the relationship with. I try to cover all my bases to make sure that we have every opportunity to capture a deal.

What do you like about being in special finance at Paul Miller Ford?
The Miller family has been good to me and it’s a good place to work. What we’re trying to accomplish here isn’t just putting somebody into a vehicle and making as much money as we can then never seeing them again. I’m going to rebuild their credit because Miller’s been here 55 years and I want [that person] back as a customer; I don’t want to sell them once and get rid of them. I’ve had someone come in with a 400 score and now he’s bought 12 cars from us … [his credit score] is over 700 now.

What do you see coming in the future for the special finance department there?
I know a lot of people who are trying to get out of [special finance] … we plan on staying in it. I think it’ll come back around probably in the next two to three months. We’re just trying to hang in there and keep on doing the same things we’ve been doing for 10 or 12 years that made us successful with it. The best time to get the market share is when everybody else is sitting on their hands, and our owner believes in keeping his name out there and advertising … he doesn’t have any apprehension about keeping it going and spending a little bit of money … because it was a big part of our business at one time.

Totally random question: What do you like to do on your day off?
I enjoy going to ballgames, both high school and college. I enjoy baseball, basketball, football—it doesn’t matter, whatever time of year it is. I coached baseball for 14 years and if I can get a game, it’s always good.

Our congratulations to Gary Conlee, this month’s SF Superstar, and our thanks to John Paul Miller, Jr., executive vice president and general manager of Paul Miller Auto Group, for bringing him to our attention. 

Vol. 3, Issue 1