Making the F&I Process Work for Your Clients

Team One is somewhat unique in the industry in that we don’t sell any products. We are a research, process development and training company. We supply our process and training as a support system for a network of general agents and F&I product providers throughout the U.S., Canada and Australia.

Since developing and introducing the F&I Menu concept to the industry in the early 1990s (then as Summit Systems), we have studied and measured the results of every imaginable F&I process and approach – and some of these approaches were very creative.

They took many forms, including the 16 original F&I menu layouts, full-color laminated place mats, flip charts, videos shown to the customer (originally on tape, then on DVD), various sales pitches and, more recently, computer screen presentations, iPad presentations, and even presentations you can do on your smartphone.

And whenever you analyze the results of different F&I approaches, some basic principles always seem to end up determining whether a process will be a long-term success or failure.

First, It Should Be Easy.

It doesn’t matter how good a process is in theory; if it isn’t used, it won’t work. And we found in extensive process testing that if a process was too difficult and cumbersome, even if F&I managers were willing to try it out initially, over time, the more burdensome it was, the less likely it was to be used.

It Should Be Simple.

Buying a car is a very taxing intellectual and emotional process for most buyers. And it’s amazing how easy it is to make the presentation of F&I products so complicated that the customers have trouble grasping and retaining what is being presented. And when they don’t understand it easily, they resist.

With over 19 years of F&I process development, we have found that an effective F&I process keeps the product description short and to the point and the language of the presentation simple enough for the customer to understand easily.

F&I products really aren’t that complicated. And if the customer understands them easily, they will buy them. But you have to keep it simple. Many of the processes we tested over the years didn’t work, simply because they deluged the customer with more information than they could easily retain.

It Should Be Fast.

The Retention Acceptance study below measured three factors from customer interviews after conventional F&I sales presentations. They were Retention, meaning how much they understood about the product, Acceptance, their positive or negative opinion of the product, and Purchased, the product they actually bought or said they wanted to buy.

The customers’ responses clearly show that the F&I manager only has 5 to 8 minutes to present all their products. After that, the customer doesn't retain any useful level of understanding, has a negative view of the product presented, and is much less likely to purchase it.

It Should Not Evoke the Dreaded ‘Sales Resistant Response.’

What do I mean by a sales resistant response? To explain, let’s take a look inside the customer’s head.

While every customer is different in many ways, they all process visual and auditory stimuli the same way. When the eyes and ears receive stimuli, that information is processed in an area of the brain called the thalamus.

The thalamus receives messages, interprets them and sends them to the conscious mind. That processing takes into account all of one’s knowledge, experience, fears, and biases and then sends a predetermined evaluation of that information to the area of the mind we recognize as conscious thought: the frontal lobe of the cerebral cortex.

This process is the way the brain protects you from various threats and fears – and causes sales resistance. When this stimulus is processed by the thalamus, it makes powerfully suggestive, primary decisions about that input. The customer’s reaction will simply be a reflection of that. The customer consciously receives this powerful message and makes decisions, largely based on what that message tells them.

We recently measured “real” results of different F&I approaches in “real” F&I offices. If any principle we have learned over 19 years of F&I process development was reinforced, it was that evoking the dreaded “sales resistant response” can certainly make the F&I manager’s job a whole lot tougher.

Obvious “In Your Face” Sales Tools

I get questions all the time about which media work best for presenting F&I products. Over the years, we have tested every conceivable type. And no matter which medium the F&I manager uses to present products, if the visual media looks like an obvious “sales tool,” the customer will naturally and automatically respond with sales resistance.

If something in a process evokes the dreaded sales resistant response, the F&I managers end up spending all of their energy trying to overcome it. They’ll soon feel like they are working too hard, and eventually stop using the process altogether.

Worse yet, it also makes the process uncomfortable for the customer. And frankly, it's not necessary.

Much of the conventional wisdom in F&I over the last 40 years has been to try to overcome that sales resistance by "creating value" or "developing rapport" or “overcoming objections” (or in the old days, "rolling over them") with a variety of sales techniques.

But as we moved from the Consumer Age of the ’80s into the 2000s, and certainly today, we found customers were becoming more and more resistant and much more skeptical of any obvious, “in your face” type of sales pitch.

If the F&I process can avoid evoking that response in the first place, it makes things much, much easier for the F&I manager and as a result, they use the process and sell a lot more F&I products.

What's the answer?

Well, fortunately for the income development agent, the solution to the issues above is actually quite easy to accomplish. The simple answer is to show your F&I managers how to present their products in the shortest, simplest possible way and, just as importantly, do it using their own natural way of speaking.

This approach not only communicates more clearly but registers in the customer's mind as being genuine.

How do we help the F&I manager to check their presentation to see if meets those basic principles, can be clearly understood, and sounds genuine?

The best way is to have them practice it with those closest to them. Suggest that they practice their presentation with their husband, wife, boyfriend, girlfriend, mom, dad or anyone else who’s very close to them and knows their speech pattern. Just make sure it’s someone outside of the business.

Do not have them practice with a fellow F&I manager. They will figure out how to add another 10 minutes worth of magnificent and wonderful features and benefits. You know they love selling and, of course, like hearing the sound of our own voice.

Have them get honest opinions from that person as a consumer. Have them time their presentation and ask if they are taking too long. Have them ask whether they sound "natural" when they present their products.

They will be amazed at how much they learn from this exercise and they’ll actually have fun doing it. So, try it! We have had great success with this exercise. Some of the top F&I performers in the country have told us it has had a dramatic effect on their performance.

And if it works for them, it just might work for your clients.