F&I and Showroom, February 2014

February 2014 F I and Showroom 17 T he sales and fi nance teams at Puente Hills Calif Toyota operate under a single motto Be easy to buy from It sounds simple enough but in Nicholas Cardins 25 years of selling Toyotas delivering on that promise has been anything but easy He believes the pro blem is endemic to the industry We make it hard Weve trained customers to be jerks says the general manager for the sprawling Toyota store What Im trying to do is untrain them Thats why our No 1 rule for salespeople is to always agree with the customer and be easy to buy from The tall lanky Cardin has a soothing voice and a quick smile to go with his laid back personality a combination that has guided him through his almost three decade career in the car business Delve a little deeper however and one quickly realizes that his simple approach to sales is the result of years of studying his customers and the data that tells him what they want out of the car buying experience Its more than just being nice to people he says Anybody can smile and be nice Its about giving customers the Wow experience giving them a handshake and telling them Take all the time you need If youre on a time schedule we can accelerate the process Be Different At 56 Cardin remains a student of the game and is always tinkering with his process in the name of improving the customer experience His sales and F I process averages about 32 hours per transaction which is on par with other Toyota dealers in the Los Angeles region according to a study J D Power and Associates conducts for Toyotas dealer network But thats not good enough for Cardin The same study found that his customers were forced to wait for their vehicle to be washed and detailed after leaving the F I offi ce Cardin noticed and he came up with an action plan to correct the issue But thats not the only action plan hes working on For years dealerships have had a 10 to 12 step sales process Im trying to get that down to four he says Cardin decided to train his sales team to avoid making customers jump through hoops to get pricing payment and trade appraisal information If the customer wants a payment on an Internet quote give them a payment But on the very next email ask them Did I win Am I in the game Youll be surprised how well that works Asked if hes afraid of being shopped he adds The customer may have shopped several dealers and we may be the only one who got back to them with a price So far Cardins approach has been winning over customers The dealership ranks in the top 5 for new vehicle sales among Toyota franchises across the nation Last year the dealership realized a 20 year over year increase in new vehicle sales growth that outpaced other Toyota stores in the Los Angeles region by nearly double And Puente Hills Toyota is doing that in a market that claims four of the Top 10 Toyota dealerships in the nation Agreeable Sales Cardin a Southern California native who was delivered by the same doctor in the same Los Angeles hospital as his father and two brothers started out in the 1980s at a Toyota store in nearby Irvine where he quickly became the top sales producer He then joined Toyota of Cerritos in 1987 and was promoted to sales manager within a few months of his arrival Under his leadership the store weathered the economic downturn of the early 1990s and became one of the most profi table stores in the United States In February 2001 Cardin was recruited by Wilson Automotive Group to rebuild its sales and F I departments at South Bay Toyota It took eight years to lift the dealership from obscurity to profi tability setting the stage for his arrival at Puente Hills Toyota one of a half dozen dealerships operated by Hitchcock Automotive Resources Cardin joined the Toyota store in 2009 just as the country slid into the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression Ive gone through three recessions in my career with Toyota but this one stung Cardin says It may go down in history as a depression Puente Hills Toyota had more than 250 employees before the economic crash a count that dropped to as low as 140 employees during the nadir of the downturn Sales have returned to pre recession levels a feat he credits to the dealerships partnership with JM A Group We have been using the proven JM A fi nance process with great success for over 12 years he says noting that the stores headcount is now up to 150 employees The level of training that our team receives from JM A is second to none Proven Process The one thing the Southern California native is not laid back about is process Thats why JM As script and process heavy approach works at his store At the time he talked to F I and Showroom magazine the general manager was prepping to join his F I Driven