My story starts in 1987. I became a partner in a Chey, Dodge, Chrysler, Jeep Store in Piggott, Ar. Piggott Ar. is a small rural community with a population of around 3700 people. It's had the same amount of people since the 40's and 50's. There is one thing different. It used to have three new car dealerships. Each one sold enough vehicles to make a good living for each owner. Today Piggott has 0 new car dealerships. I began investigating the reason this happened. Here is what I've come up with. We have much less disposable income today than in the recent past. We also have a flawed credit system. This system is costing the retail car industry billions in sales every year. It is also one of the biggest contributors in less disposable income.

 I'll give you two examples of how. 

I was consulting for a GMC store. A customer wanted to trade his 2006, 2500 diesel 4 wheel drive in for a new 2010 GMC 4 wheel drive. The salesman did everything right. He got the buyers order signed and went into the F&I office and the customers score was 526. The deal was in jeopardy. The customer couldn't understand. So they ask me to take a look at the deal. As I was looking over the credit app I noticed the customer had taken bankruptcy in 2004. He had re-confirmed his 1st and 2nd mortgage on his home. Sometime after he had traded for his 2006 pickup the credit bureaus had began reporting the reconfirmed loans as if they were a fresh bankruptcy item every month. This devastated his score. I showed the customer the errors and gave him some sample dispute letters. He went home and fired some similar letters off the the credit bureaus. In 4 weeks the customer came into the store and drove home in his new $51,000.00 pickup. He had improved his score 100 points.

 Another important story is when a couple was trying to buy a home. They had a score of 619. FHA wouldn't back the loan. They had to have a minimum middle score of 620. I showed them a couple of errors and told them how to go about disputing those errors. They increased their score enough to get a loan but didn't feel the payment was right. We went back and showed them more errors and they increased their score over 100 points more. They went back to the broker and bought the same home for over $500.00 a month less. Over 30 years this saved them approximately $200,000. The reason I'm telling this story is because they went to a new car store and purchased an off lease car a few months after they bought their home. They were able to do this because they had saved enough on heir home loan to make the car payment. 

Over 80% of credit reports have errors. Those errors are costing dealerships in the same ways I've described. In my opinion billions every year is by-passing dealerships and going to lenders in extra interest. We've got to take notice of this now. If we don't the market will shrink even more because in the first quarter of 2010 another huge segment of consumers scores fell below 600. People do not understand their credit reports. They don't understand their rights. Credit bureaus make it difficult for consumers to improve their scores.There is a huge propaganda occurring now in the U.S. concerning credit reports. They are not accurate. Think about how many customers have walked through your doors over the last few years that couldn't buy because of low credit scores. Think how it would be if you were able to capture just half of that business in the future. You can. This problem is solvable. I know because I've spent the last two years of my life developing a way to help these people buy automobiles. I do it by educating them about credit reports and training dealership staff to mentor and coach these future buyers. To me that's what sales is about. Helping people solve problems. This is a major obstacle in the minds of at least 50% of the people in your trade area. So if you help them solve this problem your sales will increase. The same reason we no longer have any new car dealerships in Piggott, Arkansas, is the same reason more people aren't buying from you.