"One Deal Is Enough!" The Blind Spot That's Costing Dealers 10–20 Sales a Month (and Their Best Customers) | Industry Spotlight
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Dealers can lose real money when inventory isn’t ready—especially when “Check engine light came on last night” or “we're guessing dead battery on the unit your salesperson's about to walk a customer to.” The show argues that growth and higher volume make “lot showroom customer ready” harder, costing “three to 10 deals a month.” The solution centers on connected vehicle visibility: “We actually get the DTC codes,” plus alerts for “state of charge” and true odometer so issues get fixed before customers arrive. It also ties into F&I add-ons and proactive outreach.
0:00
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00:11
Concept
flat sales year
A flat sales year means the dealership isn’t selling more cars than last year. When that happens, dealers have to work harder to turn leads into sales instead of just benefiting from a growing market.
00:25
Term
past due on service
“Past due on service” means the car is overdue for scheduled maintenance. That can lead to problems later and may require extra work before the car is ready to sell.
00:25
Concept
Check engine light
The check engine light is a warning on the dashboard that something is wrong with the car. It usually means the car needs a computer scan or inspection before it’s fully ready.
00:30
Term
dead battery
A dead battery means the car doesn’t have enough power to start. If a customer comes to see the car and it won’t start, it can hurt the sale.
00:41
Company
guide point systems
Guide Point Systems is a company that provides tools for car dealerships. The host mentions them because they help dealers run their sales process more effectively.
01:05
Company
Wesley Chapel Honda
Wesley Chapel Honda is the car dealership Ferris works at. They’re using their own store as an example of how they increased sales quickly, even while the dealership was being renovated.
02:36
Concept
growth mindset
A “growth mindset” means believing you can get better over time by learning and trying. The episode uses it to explain how dealership teams stay focused on improving what they do.
03:03
Term
inventory
Here, “inventory” just means the cars the dealership has available to sell right now. If the dealership sells more cars, it has to make sure those cars are ready so customers can see and buy them without delays.
03:11
Term
lot showroom customer ready
This phrase means the car is prepared so it’s ready for a customer to come look at it right away. The goal is to avoid wasting time fixing simple issues after the customer shows up.
04:16
Term
jumpbox
A “jumpbox” is a portable device that gives a car enough power to start when the battery is dead. Dealerships use it to get the car running quickly so the customer isn’t waiting.
04:21
Term
test drive
A “test drive” is when the customer drives the car to see how it feels. If the car isn’t ready, the dealership may not be able to let them drive, and that can slow down the deal.
07:08
Term
warranty
Here, “warranty” means the promise that the manufacturer will cover a repair or replacement. The host is saying the battery might not be covered if the dealer owns the car, so the dealer has to pay when the battery dies. That’s why it’s a real money problem for them.
07:20
Term
DTC
DTC means Diagnostic Trouble Code. It’s a specific error number the car stores when something is wrong. Instead of just seeing a warning light, you can look up the code to find the likely cause.
07:34
Term
GPS
GPS is a satellite system that helps a device figure out where a car is. Some trackers use GPS to estimate mileage, but they don’t read continuously. If they check only every so often, the mileage estimate can drift and become inaccurate.
07:34
Concept
upsold in the finance department
This means the dealership tries to sell extra add-ons during the paperwork/financing step. The host is saying some theft-tracking gadgets get offered that way, but they may not help with diagnosing vehicle issues. The better system can help the dealer prepare the car before the customer arrives.
Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of the car dealership guy industry spotlight.
I'm your host, Sam Dark, and here's a number that should bother every dealer listening in
a flat sales year. The cars you've already sold, well, they're worth more than the ones
sitting on your lot. And most of us, we have no idea what those cars are doing right now.
Check engine light came on last night. Well, we don't know customer past due on service,
we're guessing dead battery on the unit your salesperson's about to walk a customer to.
Well, you'll find out the hard way standing right next to that prospect. That's the gap we're
closing on today's show. Joining today's episode, Karen Shagnon VP sales guide point systems,
Ferris Hamden GM, Wesley Chapel Honda, who doubled sales volume to 400 units in a little over a year.
Props to guide point systems for supporting today's content. Now let's get into it. Ferris,
welcome to the car dealership guy industry spotlight. Thank you for having me. Good to have
you here. So Ferris, give us a quick picture of Wesley Chapel Honda. Talk about the team,
the volume of vehicles you sell and what you do day to day there, Ferris. Here at Wesley Chapel
Honda, I mean, it's all about the team first and foremost. I'm very fortunate to have a lineup of
absolute talent, extreme talent here at the store. So that goes a long way. We're very excited to
have the team that we built over in the past few years and developed and coached and mentored.
This team has done an incredible job almost doubling our sales volume in a short two years,
doing about 350 to 400 currently with upside for growth. We are currently going through construction.
So we've been able to do that while going through construction. So in about a month,
month and a half, I think it'll be a little bit more clear, but 350, 400 cars a month,
the team here does a great job at Wesley Chapel Honda.
Doubling your volume over that period of time, it is an astounding feat coming into 2026. I think
most dealers watching this would want to know what's one thing, what's one strategy that you've
implemented that has helped you duplicate or to double your volume in that short of time?
You know, again, it starts with the team. Having the right people that believe that it can be done
first and foremost is very important. If you have a bunch of people that believe that that goal that
you set or goals that you set are achievable, that's number one. You have to have the belief.
And then the mindset, right? Are we on a growth mindset? Are we on a fixed mindset? You know,
my team is on a growth mindset. So we're constantly talking about growth. What can we do better?
But, you know, for us, it was one of those things where we had an opportunity. We saw
this store needed some help in certain areas. And we came in and added additional value.
So one of the challenges in all of automotive right now is anytime you double volume, anytime
you sell as many vehicles as you're selling, it's the problem of making sure that inventory
is ready, that it's lot showroom customer ready when that customer
shows up on the lot to look at it. Talk to us about it. And I know we're here to talk about
making sure that vehicles are prepared the day of. But before you implemented today's solution,
talk to us. How often were you discovering inventory problems only after the customer
was standing on the lot? And what were the most common problems that you were finding? And what
was the cost of that? I'm assuming there's probably a lot of people here that could relate that
are listening, but we had that problem more times than we'd like to admit, you know. As far as
readiness, it's very important. You have a customer that goes online, potentially picks out a vehicle
that they're interested in, and you don't know where they're coming from. They could be in your
backyard, it could be local, they could be coming from an hour, hour and a half or further. So
having that vehicle prepped ready for them is very important. There were times customer would
show up after hour and a half drive, go find the car, take a little bit of time to find the vehicle,
and then they find it with a dead battery. And then we're sitting there kind of twiddling our
thumbs like, okay, now we got to go find a jumpbox, go make sure the vehicle start and you start the
vehicle you find out it's low on gas, can't take a test drive, you know, certain things like that
slows the deal down. It doesn't get the customer too excited, it kind of gets rid of that positive
momentum. And you know, customers want a great experience, they want to go to that vehicle,
they want speed and efficiency, they want to be able to test drive the vehicle and not have to
wait hours and we're in Florida. What city in Florida are you? Tampa, Florida. Okay, you're in
Tampa. Okay, let me be afraid that we're in West Sea Chapel, Florida in the Greater Tampa Bay Area.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's beautiful there. So you've got all the benefits of the weather, but right,
you know, a customer drives from Naples or they drive from Orlando or wherever else they want
to see that vehicle ready. What was the moment where you said, hey, vehicle condition can't be
a question anymore for our customers? When they show up, we've got to know we don't have to jump
that vehicle because to your point that you lose credibility in that moment, you got to grab the
jumpbox because then, hey, if the battery's not fresh and ready to go, what else is wrong? And
it doesn't put the best foot forward in all of automotive. What was the moment you said enough?
Like, we need to find a solution for this. I mean, it just happened too many times. I mean,
at the end of the day, when you lose one car deal over a dead battery, that's enough. That's really
enough for me. At the end of the day, you know, you want to get the customer a truly exceptional
experience. You got to make sure the vehicle's ready when they show up. So, you know, for me,
it was a continuation of, you know, constantly having vehicles with dead batteries and or
low fuel and we are, you know, it's a very, we're a landlocked store. So, we don't have much land,
much parking. We have four lots that we utilize. So, we can't miss a beat when it comes to making
sure that vehicle is ready for the customer. Battery, good, tank, full, test drive ready.
Enter Karen with guide point. When your team got the call from Ferris and his team and said,
look, we've got a problem. We're trying to double our unit sales. We're trying to make sure that
every customer when they show up on the lot sees a vehicle that is ready to be presented,
that is in its best state. You said, hey, I think we have a solution for that. Walk
us through what the solution was when Ferris and his team reached out. Well, first off,
I'm sure Ferris didn't reach out with the best kept secret in the industry. So, I'm sure Christina
went knocking on his door. And what our team does is we really want to go in and find out what
problems they have. Because if we're not solving a problem, there's no reason to implement what we
have. So, I'm sure Christina went in there, started talking about the lot and how much money they're
losing. The average dealer is losing three to 10 deals a month on vehicles not ready. This is a
stat. This is not my information. This is industry information. You know, as Ferris said, one deal
is enough. We find dealers today. Batteries are not covered by warranty if the dealer owns the
vehicle. That's money they're eating. So, there's a hard savings there as well. So, when we start
talking to them, when we find, you know, they've got dead batteries or, you know, a customer goes up
to a vehicle and there's a DTC or check engine light. Guess what? We're alerting them and telling them
How are you getting that? Because there are a lot of GPS devices out in the marketplace. A lot of
them are focused on theft and that can be upsold in the finance department to provide value for the
customer. Not many have the ability to pull those codes and give that view into the health of the
vehicle overall to Ferris's point to be able to prepare and make sure that that vehicle is ready
for the customer. Unlike others, we're actually reading the health of the vehicle. We actually
read the canvas. So, we're getting a lot of notifications from the vehicle on the health of
the vehicle. Some of the main ones that we get and that we're acting on for dealers today are the
check engine lights. We don't just see that there's a check engine light. We actually get the DTC codes
and the description of what those are. So, the dealership is very aware of what's causing that
issue for that customer or what's wrong with the vehicle on the lot. We also see true odometer
and this is actually a game changer. A lot of other companies out there will say that they're
given the mileage that they can tell them what it is, but it's based on GPS. And when you think
about that, the device is not reading that vehicle all the time. It reads it every few minutes,
sometimes maybe it's 90 seconds, a minute. That car makes turns. So, every time it reads it,
it's like the crow flies. So, you're actually missing the actual distance traveled. So, over time,
this builds up. So, over time, you can be 10 to 20% off. So, when you're using that to remind
customers, you're not actually necessarily reminding them at the right time. And that's
crucial if you want to get that customer back. If you're off 10, 20%, you may be sending those
reminders too late. Ours is actually reading the true odometer so we can make sure that those
notifications go out at the right time. We also read fuel levels. That's crucial for the lot. If
you've got someone coming for a test drive and there's no fuel in the vehicle, you can fix that
before that customer gets there. Also, customers can sit on their vehicles after it's sold. So,
they can make sure, you know, if you've got a daughter driving a vehicle, she's got gas in
the car before she leaves. And you can make those reminders to put gas in. Battery health.
We don't just look at whether a battery is charged. We actually get the state of charge
for that battery, which is about the health of the battery. So, making sure that we're able to
allow dealers on the lot to replace batteries or charge the batteries before they get to a crucial
level where they have to be actually replaced, saves the dealers a ton of money. Those batteries
are not covered by warranty. So, you know, an average dealer, often they're losing 10 to 20
batteries a month before they come on board with us. And after they come on board, that's reduced
down to 80% reduction in general. So, there's a lot of savings there. So, these are just some of
the areas where we make a difference and how reading the health of the vehicle is different
than just getting some, you know, having a beacon on the car. So, Ferris, take us on the lot with
what Karen's sharing. So, she brought you the solution. You implemented it to help prepare
the vehicles better for the customers they came in. What did you see on the lot when you
plugged these in and started having that visibility to the data on the inventory sitting there?
I mean, it was like magic. I mean, everything started kind of flowing instantly, you know. At
that point, I had less issues with vehicles. I really don't hear any more about batteries being
dead, vehicles needing fuel, customers leaving because they didn't want to wait for associate
to find a vehicle because, you know, again, we use four lots here. We have two lots that store
one lot for new cars, another lot for used cars, and then we have a lot for employee parking.
And, you know, it's a drive. It's not like you can walk to those lots. You have to physically
drive to those lots. So, that's a little bit of time in itself and speed and efficiency is very
important to us. So, now we have the ability to just snap the finger, check the health of the vehicle,
make sure everything is in line, have the vehicle up front and ready when the customer arrives,
and they're taking that test drive, having a good time doing it and saving a lot of time.
Are you able to somehow quantify, because it seems to me to Karen's point, if you're able to
address a problem before it becomes worse, so a battery that's slowly going down or a mechanical
issue before it fails, are you able to quantify the impact of used vehicle reconditioning or
damage of having the data and the visibility into the vehicle health?
You know, absolutely. I mean, I would fair to say, as far as in terms of volume, it's helped
prevent us, you know, it's probably saved us. I would probably say 15 to 20 deals a month,
you know, not just in regards to dead batteries, but you know, knowing other things about the vehicle
that could be something a set off for that customer that they just see and
open recall. Oh, you know, I don't want a vehicle that has open recall. Well,
you know, that recall has now been corrected and it's no longer a thing. So, it's the vehicle is
absolutely ready to sell and it just gives that customer that peace of mind. So, you know, I would
contribute at least 15, 20 sales, maybe more because we have the ability and then our situation
is a little bit different because, you know, we have those offsite lots where we have to go grab
sometimes the inventory. So, having that ability to know it's either on this main lot or on one of
those other lots and the vehicle is ready or not ready is very important. So, Ziggler, we have a
GPS based device as well and it helps us do management, helps us track vehicles. To be fair,
we don't have that level of access to vehicle health in terms of codes. So, props to you for
having that. I would think that would help minimize some recon cost, help catch problems before they
become worse. One thing that has been a huge advantage to us is the ability to offer the
protection we get on the lot to our customers in the finance office. Talk to us about how
GuidePoint and this product, having that visibility and tracking has helped increase
PVR in the FNI office today. So, GuidePoint, I mean, it's been a real game changer for us in the
finance office. It gives our FNI team a high value customer friendly product and it directly
boosts our PVR. Things like the GPS tracking, stolen vehicle recovery, even the vehicle health
monitoring and real-time alerts for maintenance, battery fuel, et cetera. I mean, I can keep going
on. It fits right into the FNI process. You know, it's positioned as peace of mind and protection
for the customer. It's not just another add-on and then our customers love it because it keeps
them connected to their vehicles and it helps them also avoid breakdowns if it happens themselves or
even theft issues. Yeah. Yeah. So, what percent of customers in your finance offices say,
hey, I want to have that protection as well? What's the pen rate in your store?
I would probably say we're about 70 percent. Pen rate?
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