Your Sales and F&I teams are probably willing to go the “extra mile” to close a sale with a customer, but when that “extra mile” includes making a “side agreement” to lend the customer money to close the deal, it’s time to re-evaluate the transaction.

You might be surprised to learn that Sales and F&I employees will sometimes cut “side agreements” with the customer, in which the dealership will lend the customer a small amount of money as necessary to assign the loan and close the deal. Your initial reaction might be “but that doesn’t happen in my dealership,” and while we hope that is true, it is happening more often than it should.

Originally published in MSADA Magazine in May 2015.