Persona Non-Grata
Noun: An unacceptable or unwelcome person.
When particular salespeople bring a deal back, do your colleagues in the finance department ever find themselves oddly preoccupied
with activities?
Perhaps this applies to you as well.
Do specific members of the sales staff seem to always “box” you in by unnecessarily discussing deal particulars you were hired to take care of i.e. interest rates, terms, payments, etc.? (Of course, we are NOT referring to deals worked on payments, utilizing store average credit, through the sales desk.)
What we’re talking about here is a conversation between the salesperson and the customer that could be handled differently.
Recklessly throwing around information that is oftentimes inaccurate and creates conflict in the business office isn’t in anyone’s best interest.
Remember, sales people are trained, from the beginning, to utilize word tracks and feel compelled to answer every question the
customer fires at them, even it if concerns finance.
Instead of running for cover every time you see that certain salesperson heading your way with his/her “bag of tricks” deal, try providing him/her with a word track of your own.
Consider this exchange:
Customer – “Bob, what do you think my interest rate and payment will be and what sort of term will I get?”
Instead of the customary answer of a direct (and oftentimes slightly inaccurate) response, perhaps we could advise Bob to try the following:
Bob – “Mary, what you and I have been discussing is step one of a two-step process. I don’t handle the finance end of things. I’ll be turning your deal over to the business office shortly. They’ll take care of all the finance arrangements for you. Only after that second step, do we have a completed deal.”
Mary – “Come on Bob, you’ve been doing this a long time. You must have some kind of idea what rates have been running!”
Bob – “Like I said Mary, they’ll take care of all that in the business office for you.”
That’s it. Simple. If you have to, remind your salespeople that many compliance issues are at stake here that they, fortunately, don’t have to worry about. That’s what you’re there to do, and it keeps things a little less hectic for them. Hopefully this will keep you from running for cover every time you see “Bob” coming down the hall.
Give it a try.
Good luck and good selling.
Erik Landrum
F&I Performance Coach at Conley Insurance Group