The 2016 New Year is well under way! The team here at DealerStrong is dedicated to your dealership finding success each and every day. As we step into this year of potential, many of you have or are reviewing budgets and making forecasts. A great way to help you in that process is data from the Special Finance Benchmarks. This is an excellent comparison tool to help you identify areas where you could be adding more profit to your bottom line. You can get the information exclusively from DealerStrong by requesting it Here.
A key thing to remember when looking at the benchmarks is that they identify what dealers in the 75 percentile are accomplishing. These are not just the averages. In this case, one out of every four dealers will have higher numbers than the benchmarks and 3 out of 4 will have lower.
A credit bureau analysis from your store will be very essential to seeing how your dealership compares. Be sure to pull both an analysis for your sold and unsold customers. The sold customers will be applicable to the benchmarks. The unsold customers will be a great tool to identify what customers are currently being under-served in your dealership.
If you were able to identify under-served customers this can clue you in to whether you should look for a new finance company or perhaps do an inventory analysis to see if you are stocking the right units to make a deal.
If you look at 2015 as a whole, breaking down your results by quarter can also be helpful. You may find that you were once doing well with a certain credit score customer but that changed as the year progressed. This can help you to identify if a finance company changed their approval process, or if the vehicles you once had available are no longer being stocked. This can give you something to discuss with your finance company representative or your used car buyer.
It would also be important to look at credit scores based on sold and unsold for marketing purposes. You may have done very well with a certain credit score customer but find in another quarter the sold and unsold for that same credit score were absent from your report. Did you have a marketing program in place that produced those leads or should you be looking for one now to help attract more opportunities?
You can only manage what you measure, so you need guides or benchmarks to give you a basis for comparison.
As you move forward in your year check back with us whenever you are looking for more information, education, training or specialized marketing programs. Our team is just a phone call or email away.
Cheers to a year full of possibilities!