Your F&I Department May Be Your Dealership's Biggest Untapped Opportunity
F&I TRAINING & COACHING FOR AUTOMOBILE DEALERS
Performance Finance Group works with dealers to improve F&I profitability through customized coaching, practical training, and a more effective customer conversation.
Experience That Comes From All Sides of the Desk.
18
Dealer experience from the dealer’s side of the desk.
YEARS AS AN AUTOMOBILE DEALER
17
Training and coaching experience helping dealers improve performance.
YEARS AS AN F&I TRAINER
8
Real-world F&I experience from behind the desk.
YEARS FINANCE AS A FINANCE MANAGER
WHY F&I?
Imagine what you would have to do to double or triple your bottom-line profit in any another department.
200–300%
AVERAGE CLIENT PROFITABILITY INCREASE*
100+%
CLIENT FINANCE DEPARTMENT ABSORPTION*
The opportunity is already there. How much of that opportunity are you actually capturing?
Meet Craig.
Craig Griffith’s perspective on F&I was shaped long before he began training others. He has sat in the dealer's chair, sat in the F&I manager's chair, and spent years coaching the people who do the job every day. He understands the pressure of owning dealerships, the demands placed on an F&I manager, and the importance of creating an experience that works for both the customer and the dealership.
A dealer's perspective. An F&I manager's experience. A coach’s approach.
When Craig speaks to dealer groups, he often begins with a line from Joe Verde's Selling Cars Today:
“Sales are made or lost by a few words, not by a few dollars.”
That idea has stayed with him. In F&I, the right words will change a customer's understanding, confidence, and willingness to move forward. The goal isn't to push harder. It's to communicate better—to help F&I professionals have more effective conversations that create value for the customer and produce better results for the dealership.
The philosophy behind the approach
The Goal is Simple
Performance Finance Group was created to help dealerships make the most of one of their greatest opportunities for improvement: the F&I department.
The goal is straightforward—better F&I performance while enhancing the customer experience. Through practical training, personalized coaching, and a focus on the conversations that happen every day in the finance office, Performance Finance Group helps dealers build stronger F&I departments and a healthier bottom line.
A Different Kind of F&I Conversation.
The automobile customer has changed. Remember when they walked in to do a search rather than doing a search in their living room. The automobile customer has changed in every respect.
Today's customers are more informed. They've researched products. They've watched videos. They've read reviews. They've been through the F&I process before.
And many have heard remarkably similar presentations at dealership after dealership.
Ask Yourself Two Questions.
First: What happens when your customer has heard your presentation before you ever give it?
They may already know the words.
They may already know their response.
They may already be prepared to say no.
That's why Craig believes in a more natural, conversational approach.
Does Your Current Process Pass the Grandma Test?
Then: Would you be comfortable if your best friend's daughter or grandmother experienced your F&I presentation exactly as your customers do today?
Would you feel comfortable knowing that someone your best friend loves was going to receive the same presentation, the same approach, and the same customer experience?
And if you wouldn't, would you coach her differently? Would you ask your F&I manager to present differently because she was someone you knew?
Or does that tell you something about the experience every customer should be receiving?
Your Dealership Isn't Cookie-Cutter. Your F&I Training Shouldn't Be Either.
Every dealership has different people, processes, strengths, and opportunities. Performance Finance Group starts by understanding what is actually happening in your F&I department—not by handing you another generic training program.
From there, a customized coaching plan is built around your specific opportunity, your team, and the results you want to achieve.
Find the Opportunity.
Build the Plan.
Coach the People.
Create Results.
Already Happy With Your F&I Products Partner? Good.
Keep them. Performance Finance Group isn't a products vendor. We provide training and coaching designed to help your F&I team perform at a higher level without disrupting the product relationships you already have in place.
What If Your F&I Department Could Produce More?
Improve Profitability
Identify opportunities within the F&I process that may already exist inside your dealership.
Improve the Conversation
Replace rehearsed, repetitive “canned” presentations with a more natural and understandable customer conversation.
Develop Your People
Give your finance managers ongoing coaching rather than treating training as something that happens once.
Why Should the Dealer Take All the Risk?
Craig spent many years as an auto dealer. He understands what it's like to be approached by someone promising a solution—and asking for payment before the result is ever known.
Performance Finance Group was built differently.
The company's compensation is structured around results.
You don't have to take our word for it.
Dealer Principal
“I have seen F&I trainers and other kinds of trainers that will come into your store with such an attitude, that they can rub people the wrong way and do irreparable damage before they even get started… Craig adapted his style to fit and to be comfortable with the people he was working with. Craig fits our dealership group very, very well because he was the kind of Dealer that I am, as far as how he treats customers and his reputation. He does things in an honest and honorable way.”
—Mark Birdnow, Birdnow Dealerships
“One of the best things that’s happened to our dealership in the past few years is Performance Finance came in with the idea of increasing our profits in the F&I office… This has been vital to the success of our dealership. We have increased our revenues in the finance office by more than 200% since Performance Finance has been involved with our F&I manager… There aren’t very many people that will make that guarantee without some sort of financial commitment up front.”
—John Butler, Pinicon Ford-Lincoln
General Manager
“Craig had a lot of patience with our staff to get us on the right foot… I would equate his way a lot like a personal fitness trainer… He found our strengths and our weaknesses without being confrontational. Craig wants the dealership to do better… His conviction and his true desire is to help us… He wants us to do better and that comes through when we talk to him.”
—James Kloeckner, Fairmont Ford
“Craig has been Instrumental, in helping our [finance] manager grow personally and professionally. Her self-confidence has grown 10 times plus! Craig has a way of absolutely connecting with her, and I would imagine with any other F&I person for that matter… and finding what it takes to make them tick and help them to find their God-given talents… The performance of that department is just Phenomenal at this point, not to mention the fact that of course with the added income, my income got bigger, my F&I person’s income got bigger, our store’s bottom line has definitely grown, and of course, our owner is quite happy with that.”
—Thomas “Frosty” Frascht, Birdnow Dealerships
Finance Manager
“I have been working with Craig for about three months… He brought me into this and trained me to do what I need to do… previously this department has been averaging about $2000-$3000 per month, and these last two months we have been doing $30,000-$35,000 per month… So with not having any prior training or experience of this job, this has been a fantastic experience for me. I am 100% comfortable and capable now of doing this job and everything that it entails… I would definitely say that Craig has done an amazing job of training me, he’s done an amazing job of getting me to where I’m at.”
—Melissa D, Boland Ford
“When I got this job opportunity, I had no idea what it entailed… the first 6 months after being here, I still knew nothing… I was so nervous…I didn’t know my products, I didn’t know anything… I was thrown into it. After the first 6 months I really didn’t know if I was going to be able to stick it out it… I didn’t know! I didn’t have the training… I was thrown in to this. Then when Craig came into our store, the first couple of trainings with Craig, I think in our second one, I finally realized that it was making sense… it was more understanding to me, it just seemed to slide right in, things made sense, the diagrams, going through the brochures and just being myself. It let me know that the training I had in Des Moines… they wanted me to be a robot… with Craig I could be myself. Now, I’ve tripled [my income] in the last 8 months that we’ve been working together… I went from not believing in myself, to believing that I can do this. This job isn’t as hard as what I made it out to be. It’s more of, what you want to do with it. You set your own pace, you set your own time frame, you set your own paycheck. It’s whatever you want to make out of it, and Craig has given me the tools to do so. All I have to do is use those tools and I can see what I can do. I’m very confident with what he’s done with me.”
Update: “Craig has been working with me for the past two years. Recently I had a month, that halfway through, I was at 90% service contract penetration, which, before Craig started working with me, I was lucky to get one service contract out (sold) a month. Since Craig walked in the door, it’s been amazing what he’s done for me and our company. Every time I know he’s coming, I get more confidence because I know he’s coming in to the store to help me and help me, be me.”
—Hidie R, Birdnow Dealerships
“I was kind of thrown into the Finance Manager job. No training was really given… there was a little bit here and there… it was kind of a ‘figure-it-out-as-you-go’ deal… Craig came along… he had a great idea, perfect plan, the presentations fit my morals, the ethics and stuff of how I like to conduct business… it really fit the store’s personality. After meeting Craig I felt like we ‘jived’ and it worked from the get-go. Craig really kind of dove in to this role in general, and what this office is supposed to do for a dealership… with his years of experience being for one, behind the desk, and also his experience of owning dealerships, he knows his stuff. He’s been around the block. The new presentations were super awesome and it was great to get going on that after learning them and putting more thought into it. It just seemed simple, seemed common-sensical. I’ve had customers compliment me saying, ‘thanks for explaining this very thoroughly.’ I’ve had customers that I’ve never sold before, sign right up as soon as I just explained it better than I had in the past… it’s pretty awesome that I could get this guy, [Craig] to come in and teach me this job… it was a good deal for me… the pay structure that Performance Finance has, I know the owner likes. I would definitely recommend Craig and everyone at Performance Finance to any F&I producer that I know.”
—James F, Birdnow Dealerships
What Could Your F&I Department Be Producing?
You may already have more opportunity in your F&I department than you realize. The right coaching, the right conversations, and a plan built around your dealership can turn that opportunity into measurable results.
Let's find out.
Performance Finance Group
F&I Training & Coaching for Automobile Dealers
*Results vary by dealership and individual circumstances.