A Team Effort - The Impact Group

Dealer Profle
SHEEHY’S
GOT TALENT
A Mid-Atlantic dealer
group devises an
innovative way to help its
F&I team transition to a
new menu system. Product
penetration and per-copy
averages have climbed ever
since. By Justina Ly
T
he grand prize winner won
a weeklong trip for two to
Mexico, while the second
through ffth place fnishers received cash prizes
ranging from $750 to $1,500. But Lisa
Ziropoulos believes the real winners
of her “Sheehy’s Got Talent” contest
are the 50 men and women manning
the F&I offces inside Sheehy Auto
Group’s 19 locations.
Ziropoulos serves as director of
sales operations for the Fairfax, Va.based dealer group, which operates 21
franchises throughout Baltimore and
Richmond. It retails 30,000 vehicles
per year and claims to be the largest
retailer of Fords and Nissans in the
region. But the group put its F&I profitability on the line when it decided
early last year to make the switch to
The Impact Group’s Fusion menu.
The transition to the customizable,
electronic menu did have its challenges, the main one being that the group’s
F&I product provider had no prior connection to the operation’s new menu
16 F&I and Showroom January 2014
provider. But once those issues were
resolved, Ziropoulos spearheaded a
multipronged effort to get her F&I producers to fully embrace the new selling
system. It culminated in the Sheehy’s
Got Talent competition, which tested
her F&I team’s menu presentation and
objection-handling skills.
“It was a lot of fun for everybody,
but contained in the fun was a lot of
training,” Ziropoulos says. “And as a
result of it all, we can get them to sell
more product. That’s where the winwin-win comes into play.”
Early Success
So far, that’s exactly how things have
worked out since the competition
concluded in October, with Sheehy’s
F&I operations realizing improve-
ments in CSI scores and F&I product
penetrations. Ziropoulos says she frst
learned of The Impact Group’s Fusion
menu last February, when the group’s
Sheehy Nissan of Waldorf (Md.) began testing the software tool.
“One of our stores ended up getting
the Fusion menu installed, and all of
a sudden that store was doing a phenomenal job proftability-wise in the
fnance department,” she says. “We
really took a hard look at the menu
and decided that this menu was really
something that was adding to their
success at that store.”
Branden Toth is the general sales
manager and fnance director at
Sheehy Nissan of Waldorf. It was during the dealership’s quarterly management meeting last year that he sug-
The top fve winners in the Sheehy’s Got
Talent contest were F&I producers Branden
Toth, Mel Worsham, Al Greene, Erica Kallop
and Niki Pulley. Toth received a trip for two
to Mexico, while the second through ffth
place winners enjoyed cash prizes ranging
from $750 to $1,500.
gested the outlet conduct a 90-day
trial of the Fusion menu, which he was
exposed to while working for another
dealer group. Knowing its capabilities, Toth believed it would beneft the
business.
With the Fusion menu, F&I managers can build custom menus to cater to a customer’s fnancial needs
and driving habits. The system will
make automatic payment calculations
if products are added or removed, or
if a customer wants to see his or her
biweekly, monthly and annual payments. The system also features tools
designed to help producers illustrate a
product’s feature and benefts, including videos and graphs.
Toth also appreciates the system’s
robust reporting, which allows him to
track each producer’s performance as
well as which features they use during
their presentations. But the tool that ft
right into his selling process was the
menu’s connection to Edmunds.com’s
True Cost to Own pricing system.
“[Customers have] heard of Edmunds.com, and they trust it,” Toth
says. “So I go to Edmunds.com so
they can see the true cost to own.
Then I show them what they save with
the [service contract].”
The results of the 90-day trial were
so dramatic, Toth adds, that the dealership made the switch to the Fusion
menu permanent. “We went from a
store that had one solid closer to one
where everybody in the fnance department is running more than $1,400
per copy,” he notes.
Toth’s team is currently averaging
2.1 products per deal. Product penetration rates have also improved,
with service contracts penetrating at a
rate of 57.5%. Maintenance, the product with which Toth kicks off his F&I
presentation, is penetrating at a 50%
clip, while the acceptance rate for aftermarket products sits at 28%.
“We changed the way we sell,” Toth
says, adding that cancellations are also
down as a result of the Fusion menu.
“These guys actually kicked into higher gear, changed their processes, and
that’s why we’re so successful.”
Team Effort
The success at Toth’s dealership was
enough to convince Ziropoulos and the
rest of Sheehy’s management team to
January 2014 F&I and Showroom 17
Dealer Profle
Nearly 50 F&I producers took part in the Sheehy’s Got Talent contest. Pictured are the 10 fnalists, including frst and
second place fnishers Branden Toth and Mel Worsham. The deciding round was held at Sheehy Auto Group’s Volkswagen
store in Springfeld, Va., where fnalists were given 15 minutes to deliver their best pitches.
roll out the Fusion menu to the group’s
other stores, but the transition would
require the cooperation of several different vendors. “It’s been a great experience rolling out the menu together,
with everybody embracing what’s best
for Sheehy,” Ziropoulos says.
On the transition team was Garrett Thorpe, vice president of training
for The Impact Group, and Bonnie
Jean Hammett, regional manager for
the Automotive Development Group
(ADG) and Sheehy’s longtime agent for
its EasyCare products. Ziropoulos was
especially impressed with Hammett’s
efforts, saying that she was instrumental in connecting Thorpe to EasyCare’s
IT team to get the econtracting and erating pieces plugged in. She also helped
with the integration of the product provider’s presentation materials.
The Impact Group’s Thorpe also
had high praise for Hammett. “Bonnie Jean has been a good friend of our
company for a long time, but we’ve
never had a formal business relationship,” he says, noting that similar integration efforts were required for the
group’s biweekly payment provider,
IntelliPayment. “And we already had
a relationship with EasyCare because
we have other dealers that use its products, but we didn’t have the econtract18 F&I and Showroom January 2014
ing piece set up. That’s where Lisa and
ADG really helped.”
Thorpe also trained ADG’s Hammett and her team on the Fusion menu,
preparing them for the new-hire and
follow-up training they are responsible for at Sheehy. Once trained on
the menu, Hammett and her team accompanied Thorpe as he trained F&I
managers at Sheehy’s other stores.
Hammett says she was impressed
with the Fusion menu right out of the
gate, adding that she also welcomed
the chance to connect with another
company on such a big undertaking.
“I thought it was the best looking system,” she says. “Our big objective is
to help everybody. I was 100% certain
that it would help all of us do a better
job and sell more products.”
Once the integrations were completed, the dealer group rolled out the
menu to Sheehy’s remaining stores in
May. “We didn’t get a lot of pushback.
We staged the installs and staggered
them,” Thorpe recalls. “This was by
Lisa’s design to be systematic and
methodical about it, to make sure the
stores got up and running the right
way.”
Making a Connection
Once the installations were completed
in October, Ziropoulos wanted her
F&I managers to experiment with
the system so they could familiarize themselves with its many features. “It’s not the kind of thing you
just hand somebody and walk away.
There’s continuous training that has to
go on; they need a little time to dabble
in it,” Ziropoulos says. “We were trying to fnd a way to get them to want to
get in there and play around with it, so
we came up with the idea for Sheehy’s
Got Talent.”
Nearly 50 F&I managers took part
in the contest’s regional round in October. Participants were judged in 14
different categories, including menu
usage, body language, gestures and
personality. Ziropoulos says the competition exposed the strengths and
weaknesses of each F&I manager, allowing the contest’s judges, including
Thorpe and Hammett, to offer feedback to help contestants improve their
presentations.
“We spent some time with each
individual fnance manager and gave
them feedback on things they did
great, things that maybe could be improved upon a bit,” Ziropoulos says.
After three weeks, seven regional
and three wildcard winners were
selected to move on to the second
Dealer Profle
Branden Toth was the winner of the
Sheehy’s Got Talent competition. The
F&I director for the group’s Nissan
store in Waldorf, Md., was also the
one who introduced the dealer
group to The Impact Group’s Fusion
menu, which he admits added to the
pressure he felt when he reached the
competition’s fnal round.
and fnal round, which took place at
the group’s Volkswagen dealership
in Springfeld, Va. And Ziropoulos
spared no expense.
Set up in the dealership’s showroom
was a desk and computer, which was
connected to a large projection screen
so producers in the audience could
see how each contestant utilized the
menu. Photographers and videographers were also on hand to capture
each presentation. And off to the side
were the judges, which included executives from Sheehy, ADG, The Impact Group and IntelliPayment.
“It was a pretty challenging scenario. They’re presenting in front of about
40 to 50 people,” Ziropoulos says.
“They’re mic’d in the middle of the
showroom … We had a fake customer
that we told to rile [the contestants] up
a bit, too. It was pretty fun.”
Ziropoulos says she made the fnal round a big production so all of
Sheehy’s F&I managers could learn
from their peers. “Our thought process was if the top 10 people are going to do a presentation, we wanted
to make everybody watch it because
they would learn something,” she ex20 F&I and Showroom January 2014
Lisa Ziropoulos serves as the
director of sales operations for
Fairfax, Va.-based Sheehy Auto
Group. She spearheaded the
nine-month rollout of The Impact
Group’s Fusion menu to the
group’s 19 locations, an effort that
culminated in Sheehy’s Got Talent,
a competition which tested her
F&I team’s menu presentation and
objection-handling skills.
plains. “They would fnd a word-track
or something to take away.”
As for the presentations, Ziropoulos
says she was impressed. “[There were]
great performances out of everybody,”
she says, noting that each fnalist was
given 15 minutes to run through their
pitch. “I felt terrible we couldn’t give
prizes to all of the top 10.”
Sheehy Nissan’s Toth won the competition and the trip to Mexico. He
says he ran through his presentation
only once to prepare for the opening
round. “I only have 10 minutes to prepare for customers in real life. I don’t
have two weeks to prepare,” he says.
“So I intentionally did not prepare because I didn’t want to seem robotic.”
But Toth admits the pressure was on
when he reached the fnals. “I was definitely nervous,” he acknowledges. “I
was the one who brought this program
in. If I do horrible, that’s not going to
look very good.”
Making Superstars
F&I manager Mel Worsham was the
contest’s second-place winner. He
prepared for the competition by running through his presentation with
his wife and coworkers. He says the
prize money wasn’t the only reason
Making the switch to The Impact
Group’s Fusion menu required
coordination between the group’s
new menu maker, agent and F&I
product provider. Pictured is
the operation’s transition team,
including Sheehy’s Ziropoulos, The
Impact Group’s Garrett Thorpe,
and the Automotive Development
Group’s Bonnie Jean Hammett
and John Hensley. Installation of
the menus in all of the group’s 19
locations was completed in October.
he liked the competition. “Instead of
getting my practice in with an actual
customer, I got my practice in beforehand,” he says.
And that practice has led to notable increases in Worsham’s already
solid performance numbers, with his
acceptance rate for Nissan’s service
contract rising from 50% to 60%. His
aftermarket penetration rates have
also risen from 26% to 38%, while his
per-copy average has climbed from
$1,000 to nearly $1,300. “[The Fusion
menu] has made a big difference. It’s a
lot more entertaining,” he says. “It’s not
as boring as the paper menu. It holds
people’s attention.”
The Fusion menu’s impact on
Sheehy’s bottom line is undeniable,
with producers throughout the organization enjoying similar gains in production as Worsham. But as he says,
the transition to The Impact Group’s
F&I menu wouldn’t have been as
smooth if not for Ziropoulos and her
Sheehy’s Got Talent competition.
As for Ziropoulos, she’s just happy to see her producers succeeding
with the new menu. “We found that
it’s a pretty fantastic tool for people
who’ve been in the car business for a
long time. It can take them to the next
level,” she notes. “It kind of helps new
people, too, because when the tools are
there in front of you … if you lose a
word-track and don’t know what to do,
you can use one of the tools to help.”