The Art of F&I

There are many books on how to succeed in F&I. Experts are everywhere, trying to give you advice on how to be successful. You see magazines, blogs, podcasts, and even TV shows, telling you how to maximize your profits and how to overcome any objection. Yet, something is still missing. Customer satisfaction is incredibly low.

People dislike the buying process. Nearly six out of every 10 customers skip buying a vehicle service contract from their selling dealer, while third party competition is thriving on selling to those same customers. With the advent of DealerTrack and RouteOne, coupled with the evolution of the desk-submitting deals before F&I involvement even begins, people should be delighted with the overall transaction times, but they're not.

Another problem we face is that most F&I training offered today follows an old model of trying to simply overcome objections. The focus on objections made F&I development companies a solution for dealers wanting to create their own F&I departments in the 1970s. And it worked. They created an industry. But the world keeps moving.

Today, endlessly debating with customers by overcoming every objection is a problem. We must be as Bruce Lee said, "Be like water" and adapt to each customer individually. For instance, today, a menu presentation with every product bundled into the "complete" or "platinum" column may be the best way to present your payments, or it may not be.

Do you know what sales process is most effective in your store? Or, are you just doing what the trainer tells you works best? More importantly, can they bring data? Can they demonstrate effective results in your store? If not, why are they giving you advice?