Five Opportunities to Improve Sales Efficiency and Cash Flow Now

By Dennis McGinn

AutoSuccess, January 2025

When I write about efficiency, I don’t mean cost-cutting or belt-tightening. I mean growing sales margins, making more confident trade appraisals, and working the used car operation to increase cash flow.  

You can do more with less:  

1.  More efficient new and used vehicle sales: Missing a service delivery promise chills retention. Unskilled sales presentations and lack of follow-up waste leads, ups, and referral opportunities. Your managers possess the skills and abilities to improve these outcomes, so hold them accountable for results.  

You can help used car shoppers gain trust and confidence in doing business with you by giving them full access to content-rich details about your used cars. A highly visual and interactive way to deliver this content is through digital vehicle portfolios that present your used cars as if they were new. Sales associates equipped with this content on their phones or desktops now have at hand all the features, benefits, and trim information of every used car you sell. Now they meet customers on a level field, both able to discuss any used car on your lot intelligently. Their confidence-forward knowledge helps improve closing ratios.  

2.  Spend less to increase used PPV: Committing to a practice of OBD-2 scanning 100% of vehicles 100% of the time is a proven way to build customer trust in your trade appraisals, eliminate reconditioning surprises, and benefit cash flow by managing per-vehicle profit. Though the average recon parts and labor cost per trade is under $700, according to the results of thousands of vehicles, it ranges from $50 to $10,000.  

Now, at trade, you can know your retail out for the vehicle and offer adjustments while guided by scan results, remaining flexible and within GM's control. Dealers who equip appraisers with a trust-building talk track they use with customers as they use this PPV tool on every used vehicle say the practice quickly becomes a standard operating procedure.  

3.  Recover unapplied time losses: Tracking workflow through reconditioning helps identify margin erosion. Techs who must search the lot for minutes or more to retrieve their next job get frustrated at that wasted time. Even an eight-minute search at your labor rate across six to eight repair orders per technician per day adds up to considerable unbillable time floating away. Vehicle and key tracking brings enormous efficiencies to the recon process. That retained margin contributes to PPV.  

4.  Increase speed to sale: Increasing speed to sale isn’t magic, but practicing the right sequence of events, known as time to line. Appraising used cars at the time of the trade, and using scan tools to gain greater detail of reconditioning costs moves these vehicles into reconditioning from appraisal, shaving one day off your recon cycle.  

Using recon workflow strategies to move cars from acquisition to sale in three to five days gets fresh cars frontline ready faster so they get eyeballs sooner and reduce holding cost erosion that limits and reduces PPV. The dealer picks up one additional inventory turn by eliminating 2.5 days from a recon cycle. That’s PPV improvement, too.

5.  Practice purchase wisdom: Buy inventory that sells well through your store. Stock a proper mix of models, years, and trims and price them so they draw a range of payment shoppers. Adjust price and update online listings more frequently as these vehicles age from 31 to 45 days. Know their recon costs upfront and manage them diligently to maintain profit to day 31.

Leading dealerships view everything they do through the lens of efficiency. They improve processes where they can and eliminate steps to the sale that add no value to the PPV or the customer’s satisfaction.    

Running your front and back operations with a PPV focus is like maintaining bodily well-being: You eliminate activities, habits, and foods that work against your health plan and substitute those that build resilience and health. The cost of gain for either goal is minimal, and solid results may take time, but in the end, your health and your dealership’s profit per vehicle both stand taller.  

Visit us at NADA, Booth 835, for a test drive.

About Rapid Recon

Reconditioning workflow automation from Rapid Recon is the industry standard in time-to-line inventory turn and speed-to-sale vehicle revenue enhancement for automotive retailers. Benchmarking data based on 13 million vehicles processed uniquely positions Rapid Recon to advise dealers on how to improve their store’s profitability. Used by more than 2,000 dealerships, Rapid Recon ensures the accountability of processes, property, and people. Hence, dealers know answers quickly, find assets anywhere, and sell vehicles promptly to grow dealership profitability. www.rapidrecon.com CALL US: +650‑999‑0497