OK, it's Monday Morning. I have no less then 12 applications in front of me that need to be, either, reworked or submitted to a high risk lender. All 12 applications are "buyers" that, "if qualify", will buy. One applicant wants to buy two units and keep his payments under $200 a month. The others, well, want to buy, has down payments to make it happen and are eager and ready to pick up their units as soon as they are approved. So after a dismal weekend, I have 13 total units ready to roll. Sounds like a great Monday Morning.
Here we are 2 1/2 hours into the morning and I have just received my final turn down. 13 units, down to 0. Not completely unusual, we've all seen it before, and with today's credit history, it won't be the last time we'll see Monday's like this. Last blog I discussed the need to get back on a personal level with our lenders, work on getting customers to come up with a down payment, and re-educating our customers. Going into the week after that blog, I did just that. I approached every customer with the understanding that there is a want to buy, but the hesitation may be an unwillingness to discuss their bad credit. After following all the steps of the sale I overcame the hesitation and the result was 12 applications of bad credit.
Now, whats my point. As I wrote the first two paragrahs of this blog I stopped and and asked my self the same thing. "What is my Point". After reading it over I realized that I was venting my frustrations, and it worked, I'm no longer frustrated. The point here is not that my efforts were stopped short of a sale, because I couldn't get any approvals, but the fact that there are customers walking through the door, eager and ready to buy, and with the comprehension that the days of $39 a month payments, 0 money out of pocket, are a thing of the past. Re-educating customers is going to be a long process it's definetly not going to happen overnight. It will probably take as long as it takes for the customers to start rebuilding their credit well enough to start buying again. It's something we shouldn't lose focus on. Re-educating the lenders probably won't take as long, but without applicants like these they won't know there are buyers out there, and dealers working hard to try and make it happen.
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It's my experience that more decisions to but results in more of EVERYTHING else. More credit turn downs, more "hairy deals", more deals that go sideways, more busy work for the office... and the list goes on. But it's where the list ends that makes it worth all the effort... MORE UNITS SOLD AND DELIVERED!!!! Chin up, my friend. Your hard work and persistence will pay off.
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