As the RV season wraps up another year, many business managers are evaluating their by year-to-date pay. Other managers are judging their success based on profit per vehicle retailed (PVR). Some managers just do not measure it at all.
Numerous managers pull production reports from their dealer management system (DMS) to track their performance. However, most top performers use a different approach.
Top performers measure their performance on a daily, weekly and monthly basis. When they create a new measurement report, they are measuring their performance against the goals they set on the first day of the new year.
Let me explain further.
Before dealers had DMS systems and entered the digital age, when computers report everything, the F&I managers had to generate manual reports. The accounting department, the sales department and the dealer needed the F&I manager’s reports. F&I managers were required to know “what” the production was reporting, but most important “how” production was tied into their performance. The F&I manager was required to compute the numbers and report the performance penetration percentages and actual PVRs.
There were no qualified or non-qualified RVs. When the store sold an RV, the RV was counted in the report regardless. F&I managers were required to turn in the manual report before they left for the day.
Production reports that managers used to generate manually were different from performance reports top staff run today.
Years ago, most F&I managers knew exactly how their performance compared with the goals set at the beginning of the year. If your goal was to be at 45% service contract penetration, but your nightly report showed you at 40%, you knew how many contracts you were behind.
This nightly assessment was the same for all performance measurements. How can you make up ground when you do not know what your actual daily performance numbers are? How can you perform better without actual measurements?
A daily performance report is always helpful to the sales department. When sales staff know the F&I department’s performance percentages, they can move aged RVs and those RVs coming up for curtailments. Sales managers might approve a short deal to move an RV off the lot if they know the dealership can make up ground with F&I office sales.
The report F&I managers would turn in at day’s end disclosed the most updated version of all deals. “Pending” deals were the most important, as they were awaiting delivery, finance or RV availability.
The daily performance reports were used in a daily “PTI” meeting. If you are not familiar with the term, it is a “Protect the Income” meeting. Sales and F&I managers would meet every morning to discuss each deal that had not yet been delivered. They would discuss a strategy to deliver each pending deal, looking for a way to make the deal happen. Reviewing the performance report can give managers information to guide their decisions.
At month’s end, the accounting department needed the F&I performance report to reconcile the store’s monthly sales. The comptroller performed the reconciliation by measuring every delivered business aspect. How many RVs were sold? How many service contracts? How many were financed? The performance report tied the sales department together with the accounting department’s books. Every business has a month-end closing procedure. The dealership carries it out through performance reporting.
Management also used the performance report to evaluate an employee’s performance. In some circumstances, personnel are dismissed or moved to another department because of their production numbers, not their performance. Keep in mind, production is the bottom line. However, each employee is responsible for their performance. Measure your daily performance and your production numbers should fall into place.
F&I managers track your counts in a log, including RVs delivered and financed, as well as service contracts, tire and wheel contracts, paint and fabric contracts and other products sold. The counts are measured against goals to see the shortages and the closing percentages.
Today’s DMS systems will accumulate all the production and performance numbers. However, the DMS does not connect production and performance numbers with the individual producer. When we hear those communications have gone digital, it means the computers are communicating for us. It also means experience is not included.
The ears are meant to hear, the mouth is meant to speak, and experience cannot be shared or learned without either.
Make the most of all the tools you have available, but most of all, choose the ones that help the most and are not simply the easiest.
Greg Artman is the national training manager for Diversified Insurance Management, a Higginbotham company.
