Handling F&I Objections: Key / Remote Replacement Plan

Objection: That seems expensive.

Response: The plan basically costs $49 per year (six-year finance) or $59 per year (five-year finance). People pay that for AAA for peace of mind, and AAA doesn’t cover the one loss you are most likely to have with your car. This way, you have a roadside plan that can save you a lot of time and money. Doesn't that make sense?


Objection: (For Leases) That seems expensive.

Response: Did you know that the most likely charge you would get at the end of your lease is a charge for around $375 to replace a key? Most people only turn in one key at the end of their lease. Let’s face it, a lot can happen in three years, and they usually misplace the spare. Isn't an extra $6.00 a month a good value?


Objection: I never lose my keys. I don’t think I need that.

Response: I’m sure you’ve misplaced them before and had to search the house, your office or your bag for them, right? Most people do that hundreds of times. Did you know that our parts department cuts more than 150 keys per month?

Just imagine the added stress knowing that it could cost you up to $700 for the key replacement, tow and rental. I really think you should go with it.


Objection: I wanted to keep the payment at what I was quoted.

Response: No problem at all. You must have your budget well planned. The $279 is what you pay for the car. Our Key Replacement Plan prevents the car from costing you more down the road. What if you experienced, say a $500 loss from losing your keys? Take that $500 for one year and divide it by 12 – that’s more than $40 per month added to your payment. Now you are at $319 per month for that year. Adding the Key Replacement Plan only brings your payment to $289. Does that make sense? What if I can work with you a little to allow you to get the plan and still keep your payment at $285? Would you go with that?


Opportunity: I don’t need it, but my wife, daughter or son could use key replacement. He/she always loses her keys.

Response: Great, we can offer the program to any family member. We just need to fill in his/her information. We can give him/her a set of key tags now. You get the new car, and he/she walks away with something for his/herself. The best news is that you can pay for it for him/her.


Opportunity: Key Replacement Plan has a high-perceived value and low cost making it perfect as a closing tool for other products.


EXAMPLE 1

F&I Manager: You like the parts and labor agreement I mentioned to you right? It covers the car, bumper to bumper, for 6 years and 100,000 miles?

Customer: Yes

F&I Manager: What if I was able to include the Key protection in the cost, and your payment was only $279 – would you go with that? (Ex - Add another month to the term).


EXAMPLE 2

F&I Manager: Of the products I mentioned, which ones interest you the most?

Customer: Appearance Protection, the LoJack, the GAP, etc.

F&I Manager: What if I was able to give you the Key Replacement and the pro-pack (or the GAP), and keep your payment at $289? (Slightly reduce product prices and/or increase loan term).


PRINT THIS FOR YOUR RECORDS:


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Automotive Finance Department Video on Menu Presentation

Here is a fantastic F&I menu presentation (other than his cell phone ringing in the middle of it) by a guy named Jim Brink. I found it on YouTube during a brutally slow bell to bell.

The objection handling by this guy is excellent! Check it out.




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The TOP TEN STUPID Things Said To a Lender When Re-hashing a Deal

Posted by Marla Belson on Selling Iron

The Parody continues……


10) After he moved they never forwarded his payment statements so he didn’t know where to send it or when it was due.... Really!

9) He went through a really bad divorce; she ran up alllll his credit cards and left him.
That @#(&%^*!!!!!

8) What, you see bad checks???? I didn’t catch that on my TU..... We must pull different credit reports.... Hmmm...... So, what is the rate????

7) Hey what are a few repos and bad checks amongst friends.... So, what is the rate???

6) Oh really I didn't know what that meant....so a tax lien for $10,000 isn't that good I suppose. So anyway, what’s the rate????

5) This guy has so much money down you should hope he goes bad, you will MAKE MONEY!

4) I have it approved everywhere as-is, I just need you to make an exception because I really want you to have it.

3) (The always friendly) Buy/fund this deal or you will never see another contract from me. I know a lot of people in this business I'll tell everyone your company $#%Q.

2) Well....can you waive POI... I can't prove it.


AND THE NUMBER ONE LINE STUPID LINE DELIVERED DURING A REHASH SESSION IS….


1) The infamous.....I really need a favor on this ONE deal. He's a friend of the owner. We aren't making ANY money on this ONE. No, I mean really we aren’t!!!!!


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The TOP TEN Things That Crack-Up a Special Finance Manager During a Credit Interview with a Customer.

Posted by Marla Belson on Selling Iron

The TOP TEN things that crack up a Special Finance Manager during a credit interview with a customer.

10) I didn’t know where to send my payments after I moved.

9) My ex-wife/husband ran up all my credit cards before we got divorced.
That @#$%^#^&!!!!!!

8) What, all those checks really bounced?

7) I didn’t know all those charged off phone companies where on my credit, I don’t know
anything about it! But I do have a “pay as you go” phone now!!!

6) That car was a lemon it needed too much work so I gave it back.

5) If I gave the car back and I drove it to them, that isn’t really a repo, is it?????

4) Hey, what are two or three repos and a few bad checks amongst friends???
So, what is my interest rate?

3) I never saw those charge offs before, they can not be mine?

2) “Hey, it isn’t my fault!!!!!”

AND THE #1 STATEMENT MADE……..

1) I am not going to pay for something I do not like!!!!

Ok, but everything you liked in the past, never got “paid for” either?????


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Day In The Life Of a Car Salesman

Author unknown. This was forwarded to me in an email. Post a comment if anyone knows the author.



So you want to be a Car Salesman!


6:00 Alarm goes off.

6:00 Hit Snooze on Alarm.

6:15 Hit Snooze on Alarm.

6:30 Hit Snooze on Alarm.

6:45 Wife punched me in back yelling "You are going to be late for work."

6:55 Stagger to bathroom to shower and shave.

7:00 All the sales Guru's tell you to look yourself in the mirror and say, "I am GREAT!" "I am the BEST!" Maybe tomorrow I can do it without laughing.

7:30 Can't be late for work again, put shirt in dryer instead of ironing.

8:00 Leave for work to get there early, they tell me I will sell more cars if I am early.

8:10 Return home to get cell phone.

8:30 Leave for work again after stalling for another 20 minutes.

9:10 Walk into sales meeting 10 minutes late, Sales Manager makes an example out of me. Tells new Sales Reps that early birds always get the worm, bla, bla, bla. I got a worm for ya is what I wanted to say. He must have had knee pads on during his interview to get a Managers Job!

10:30 Finally get out of meeting after hearing the same story, "When I was selling cars...." When you was selling cars, you could get a homeless person approved for a loan.

11:00 Walk almost a mile around the car lot trying to shake off another negative meeting.

11:30 Finally have time to get a cup of coffee, this will surely make me feel better.

11:45 Sit coffee down outside to catch a customer--Reach to shake hands--customer says "I am not buying anything, I am picking someone up from your service Department." Ok, Ok, I guess you can do that dude!

11:50 Coffee should be cooled enough to drink-Forget about rude old man-Wow, coffee has a cigarette butt floating in it!

12:00 Go to lunch to keep from strangling someone.

1:00 Get back to work--Your cousin is talking to another salesman. (in car sales if a customer does not ask for you, it is not your customer.) Cousin sees you and says "I didn't know this was the dealership you worked at."

1:30 Salesman sales car to your cousin. Wow, I will never live this down, but try to lessen the impact by saying "it was a distant cousin," I have not seen them in years!

2:00 Catch cousin alone and tell them "Give me my house key, you are going to have to find you another place to live!"

2:30 Finally catch a customer that seems very interested in a GMC Yukon. After the test drive, the customer says, "My company is buying the vehicle for me and they usually get it directly from the factory, I just wanted to make sure I liked it."

3:30 Catch another customer that is very interested in a used car, test drive, write up, appraise trade, present numbers....Customer says, "I just got hired at XYZ Motors and they told me to mystery shop to see how the process goes. Thanks for your time." OH, not today! You may want to call XYZ Motors to come and get you because Its a MYSTERY as to where your trade in keys are!

4:00 Get paged to back lot (Customer Waiting) which is not uncommon, but it is about 1/2 mile walk and golf carts are nowhere to be found so take off walking. See Salesman hiding behind cars laughing because they made up the fake page!

4:30 Call doctor and ask him symptoms of high blood pressure!

5:00 All Sales Personnel are needed on showroom floor. Sales Manager says, "We are going to have a lot party." Great finally something fun for today! I find out a lot party is where you rearrange all cars on the lot. You have got to be kidding!

5:30 to 9:00 work with customer on a new GMC Acadia--had trouble closing the deal and had to split with another salesman to close the deal. I was supposed to get off at 8:00, but at least I sold one. The other salesman tells me, "Your part of the commission is $50 dollars!

9:30 Go to Wal-Mart pharmacy to use their blood pressure machine

9:45 See your cousin that purchased a car from your dealership. Told him the car he bought had been wrecked! Maybe his blood pressure will be as high as mine.

The next time you go to your local dealership and it seems if all the salesman are not in the best of moods, realize customers do come first, but it could have been a rough day!


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The Golden Skate Award Part 2

Car sales reality imortalized in print by David Teves. Read on:


Back in the 70’s at Hayward Ford we used to have a kangaroo court. If you thought someone had skated you, you could ask for a hearing after the morning sales meeting. This happened a couple of times a month. These mini-trials were wildly popular if only for their entertainment value. Here you would have two impassioned opponents each ready for bear hunting but in this case instead of bear it was each other.

When the sales meeting was over the managers would clear out. They rarely wanted anything to do with this, but they agreed to honor the outcome. The salesmen would stay. We had a big crew so sometimes there’d be twenty or thirty Car Men in there, downing coffee, smoking cigarettes and ready for a show.

Two or three of the senior Car Men would act as judges.

The accuser would point out the guilty party and state his case. Both sides would tell their version of the events, most of the time wildly different from each other. If there were witness they would testify. Then the judges would deliberate. Keep in mind that the sales managers would only tolerate us being off the floor for fifteen or twenty minutes, so there was no Perry Mason oratory going on in there.

The judge’s decision was final.

Sometimes you won; sometimes you lost. (I always seemed to lose, but as stated earlier, I got all the spoons.) It was accepted that this was the end of the issue until, of course, the guy who lost managed to get the other guy back. Car Man justice!

It was out of this that The Golden Skate Award came to surface. It was quickly decided that Mike Aahl’s find would be given out monthly to the man who best exemplified not only skating, but also the spirit of skating. In some ways a Car Man who was a little out of control was admired. Sheer craziness, if controlled, was something grand to watch in a weird, sick way. Car Men were always into weird and sick.

Like the kangaroo court, The Golden Skate Award was given out at a meeting at the first of the month. A few days before, a panel headed by our salesman emeritus, Hank Mederios, would gather to choose the man they deemed worthy to be singled out for this honor.

The much anticipated morning would come. Everyone would be in high spirits. Even some of the Grand Old Men of the dealership, some of who had been selling cars there since the 40’s when Hayward Ford was nothing but an old gas station on the corner of Mission Blvd. and “A” Street, would come to witness the proceedings. In my twenty-one-year-old mind I always imagined them muttering things like, “Young wipper snappers!”

Hank Medeiros was the perfect MC for the job. He was by all accounts a natural born ham. He’d been selling Fords in the East Bay for years. He loved to be in the limelight, tell a few jokes, and have a good time. He set the perfect tone for The Golden Skate Award ceremonies.

I wish I could tell you the names of some of the winners, but the sad fact is that skaters, though entertaining in a weird way, never last long in a dealership. They were like the itinerant gamblers of the Old West, always drifting from one place to another to apply their trade and getting out when the citizens got wind of the cheating.

Hank would tell his jokes, run down a list of the dirty deeds of the award’s winner. When it was finally presented it was met with laughter by all and the red face of the thought-he-was-clever winner. Busted! A second prize was give out, The Golden Key Award, to the guy who tried hard but came in second best. The glittering key was decked out with a fancy ribbon and presented with as much good-natured malice as the skate itself.

Prizewinners were required to keep their trophies in their office on prominent display for the next thirty days. There it could be seen by all, questioned by customers, and a little reminder that they weren’t as smart as they thought they were.

“The Golden Skate Award” is a cherished memory of my youth. These days, working mostly alone, there is no one to skate me—though I have to keep an eye on my boss, another Hayward Ford veteran. But I am certain that the practice sill goes on because skating is part of our tradition, and for Car Men, traditions run deep.


Talk to you later,

David


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The Golden Skate Award" Part 1

Car sales reality imortalized in print by David Teves. Read on:


On a bright summer morning in 1971, Mike Aahl was rooting around in the trunk of old Buick trade-in along the back fence of Hayward Ford. As his hands moved piles of old newspapers, crumpled cigarette packages, and empty oil bottles his eyes brightened. There in front of him was quite a find. It was an old roller skate.

Mike withdrew his prize, his mind reeling with the possibilities. The skate itself was a scruffy, white leather affair, definitely something worn by a girl. It had old-fashioned steel wheels. Its metal frame was spotted with dust. Mike discovered an equally crusty skate key inside of it. All in all, it was perfect!

The plan for the skate’s resurrection started off simple enough; a quick clean up and a visit to the local hardware store for some gold spray paint. Within a couple of hours it was finished and set to dry along the warm western wall of the parts department. Beside it was the key, also sprayed gold, for it, too, was part of plan.

Things then got a little more complicated. Someone suggested, “Let’s take it to a trophy shop and have it mounted on a nice slab of wood.” It was a great idea, no doubt. By the time it hit the local shop another great idea was hatched and added to the plan.

In a couple of days it was done. Mike went to retreat it, and we all gathered around in his office to admire the results. There it was, a beautiful bright gold, looking like a bronzed baby shoe from hell. It had been mounted on an oak platform befitting its importance. The small gold place on the mountains base said, “The Golden Skate Award.”

It was ready to go, all we had to do was wait for the results.

Skating is a term used by car salesmen to signify, and there’s no polite way of saying this, stealing all or part of a car deal from another salesman.

In the bad old days of the car business salesmen skating each other was almost like a national sport. This was particularly true in big dealerships where there were large crews of guys fighting for survival each month.

There are different levels of skating.

In it’s most common form, another salesman would somehow manage to get on your deal after you had done all the work.

Any old Car Man can tell a story of going out to lunch only to return to discover that their appointment had shown up early. In those days the desk did not hold your customer, and whoever was there to slap the report of sale on the window got half a deal regardless of his previous involvement in the deal.

At least in this situation things managed to even themselves out over time. You couldn’t be there protecting your ass all the time Occasionally lost a half, but occasionally you got a half and the order of the universe was once more restored.

Then there was the out-and-out, you-lost-a-deal skate.

If it’s done correctly many times you never know about it. The guy you sold that 280Z to sends in his buddy to see you on your day off, and another guy sells him a car and doesn’t put your name on it. If you discover the evil deed the usual reply was, “He didn’t ask for you.”

I’ve known salesman to tell customers that the guy they asked for didn’t work there anymore, or “Bill doesn’t sell used cars. I’ll have to be the one to help out with that.” Being the clever bastards we are, there were dozens of lies you could tell a customer to get him away from you.

Management never condoned skating, but there’s not a lot they would do about it. A little skating toughens everyone up, and that’s the way they like it. They prefer to let the salesman work it out (or in some cases duke it out) on their own. The general rule: If he got you, you get him twice. It became a competition among thieves.

Skating is one of those things that The Others could never understand. They mostly live in a world governed by fairness, a place where Car Men only have a marginal acquaintance. That’s why the first rule of our business is, “The Car Business Isn’t Fair.” It is something Car Men have to accept if they are to survive. It’s not something your average schoolteacher or government worker could ever accept.

Getting skated does tend to piss you off.

I remember once a guy telling me with more than a little glee that he had gotten to me dozens of times. This was said with the rancor of, “I hate you ‘cause your brother owns the place.” That’s okay. I got all the spoons.

I’m not a saint, but I’ve never been one to skate people. You see, the third rule of the business is, “What goes around, comes around.” It’s kind of like Car Man Karma. That and my Portuguese/Catholic upbringing always prevented me from being a skater. But I will admit, I have been sorely tempted. Like our former President, Jimmie Carter, I’ve lusted in my heart.

More to come.

David


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