Dealer Review - John Gleason, President of AutoMax Incorporated, Maple Shade, NJ
My name is John Gleason. I'm President of a company called AutoMax Incorporated and we've been a Credit Acceptance customer since 1996. We were originally a major Buy Here Pay Here dealership. We were selling cars that on average, were about 8 to 10 years old with over 100,000 miles. We hit a point where we were having cash flow issues and it wasn't working for us at that time. Credit Acceptance happened to stop by and as it turned out, it became a very good thing because we gradually took our Buy Here Pay Here business and transferred it over to Credit Acceptance.
Credit Acceptance was able to take our Buy Here Pay Here business and make profitable deals out of it, both in the front and in the back. It gave us more cash flow right out of the box because every deal, we're making some money up front where as in the Buy Here Pay Here business you don't always make money up front. All of the sudden, we had cash flow, and cash flow enables you to do a great deal. We were able to sell a newer car, we were able to keep the customers happy, keep the money coming in, able to sell a car easier and expand our business. Over the years (enrolled in Credit Acceptance), we've done very well.
In 2016, Automax hit a Portfolio Profit milestone of 5.5 Million Dollars.
The good thing is that any dealer can do this. You don't have to be a rocket scientist, it's very simple, and it's definitely a win-win-win situation. To make Credit Acceptance work, you need to put all of your applications in CAPS®. What I do personally is I make sure everything I buy, within reason, will work in CAPS and I make that a part of the buying process. It really is a key to growing your dealership, it was the key to growing ours.