What Comes First: The Sale or the Financing?, from Dealer Business Journal.
There are a lot of mysteries in life. What happened to the lost city of Atlantis? Does Bigfoot really exist? Who shot JFK? For car dealers, unlocking the secret to sales and financing isn’t science fiction, but it can be cause for good debate. Is it best to sell the car and then find the financing, or secure the financing and then find the right car? The answer is a little of both.
When a customer comes to you looking to make a purchase there are a lot of things that happen almost simultaneously. The salesman has to build rapport without being pushy. The customer’s transportation and budget needs have to be understood and evaluated. The inventory has to provide the right choices for any scenario and the money has to be available to make it all work. If one of those moving parts breaks down, the deal is put in jeopardy and you and the customer start edging dangerously close to feelings of frustration and distrust. Is there a more worse-case-scenario than walking a customer through the sale, ironing out the financing details and then finding out it won’t be approved? Make sure to not let that happen by always viewing a potential sale through the lens of its financing. Here’s how: