The Anatomy Of An F&I Presentation
I love to fish – almost as much as I love to teach. If your back-end production is beginning to feel like “the one that got away,” cast your product lines on the diagram of an F&I presentation that will reel in the business.
Greeting
You have 7 to 17 seconds to open the customer’s mind to you, and to your presentation. You can gain the customer’s confidence with a genuine smile, eye-to-eye contact during a firm handshake, and by pronouncing their name correctly.
Introduction
The customer wants to know who you are, what is going to happen next, and where that will be. And you want to identify the source that brought the customer to the dealership – which person or what ad?
Sales numbers
Put the customer (and salesperson) at ease about the numbers. Before you change location, verify the sales figures on the sold vehicle with both customer and sales consultant present.
F&I invitation
Ask the customer to join you in your office for the data entry. Use the walk time to build rapport and learn all you can about the customer. What do they do? Where do they go? Who goes with them?
Data entry
Confirm all customer information before you enter it.
Now that you know everything about the customer’s concerns and buying motives, when you begin your presentation, every point of sale item you touch, look at, and refer to should move the sale forward.
Presentation
Set the stage with questions that verify customer needs before you share solutions. If your solution does not connect to a customer need, your solution has no value to the customer. No value = no sale.
Discuss every product or service feature so that the advantage will benefit the customer and follow with a trial close question. Example: The service agreement is valid throughout the U.S. and Canada so that you may travel anywhere in North America with peace of mind, and that is important to you and your family, isn’t it? Make F-A-B loops for all of your products and services. Practice each loop 21 times. Features connected to benefits build value. Greater value = easier close.
Negotiation
You have more than money to negotiate with. You have terms, days to first payment, car wash, and rental coupons to name but a few. If you do not know or remember the rules of negotiation, attend a seminar or read a book or article about them.
Menu close
Whether you introduce a menu before or after your presentation, remember that customers seem to like choices and regulators certainly do — including the choice of nothing except the vehicle. Verify that your menu meets your state’s regulatory criteria and make a second effort with every customer.
Documentation
Print the purchase order and installment contract first and fully disclose these documents to the customer. Many states require that the customer sign an additional form that discloses the payment without any F&I products and verifies that the customer elected to purchase specified items at the corresponding prices.
Disclosures
Divide the documents into categories: Loan documents and receipt for any down payment capital; policies and warranties; trade-in DMV documents; and sold vehicle DMV documents. Use a checklist to verify full disclosure and proper signatures for each form.
The presentation is the backbone of F&I production. Your F&I net will be full when you can use all 10 lures.
Dealer Marketing Magazine, October 2006