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Expanding dealer help

Aug 4, 2020
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Dakota
Hello everyone,

To keep a long story short I have owned a dealership for a little over a year and have being do ok so far. Currently doing everything myself with no in house finance options. I am looking to start adding more cars to my inventory which is no problem but need to get some reliable lenders to work with as well as add a sales person. I am pretty lost on those 2 items. Is there any good training courses or books to help guide me on this or if not does anyone have some advice for me? Thanks in advance loving the forum so far!
 
Hi Dakota, and welcome!

Get on Facebook and search for the group called "The Independent Dealer". If you aren't a member, request membership. If there is a comment section, tell them I referred you (Clint Jones). It is a pretty tight group and there are a lot of dealers from your part of the country.

Lenders are very territorial. The banks I would recommend (Nebraska) don't even do business in the Carolinas. I will give you a generic warning that many lenders won't talk to a 1 year in business Independent dealer. Don't panic though, there are a few that will. Westlake will talk to you for sure. Not the best, but certainly better than nothing.

As far as hiring a salesperson, your own background will have a lot of bearing on this. Do you have a retail automotive background? If so, you can likely handle most of the training yourself. If you don't, this is a great opportunity for both you and your new salesperson to learn a consistent process together. There are a lot of sales trainers out there. There are enough of them to make your head spin. The key for you is going to be finding one that is cost effective.

Here is one that I am going to throw out there to you. His name is Thomas Vann. I have never met Thomas, but I admire his methods. He has a lot of free material as well. You can see if you like his style before you have to pay a bunch of money.


Good luck!

Clint
 
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