View all Follow the Leaders InterviewsForrest Heathcott, President, JM&A Group
JM&A Group's Forrest Heathcott talks about feeling bullish on F&I - and how his team aims to help dealers maintain their focus on this critical profit center - so dealers can sell more new and used vehicles.
Contact Forrest via: Ilisa.Finkelman@jmfamily.com
1. STRATEGY & COMPANY MISSION
JM&A has been around for a little over 30 years. We've been very strong on the East Coast and our strategic goal is to begin to expand. We are at about 60 percent of our business is east of the Mississippi and we want to take that at least to 40 percent equality west of the Mississippi. We are pretty energized by the opportunities that are there. We are also looking at potential acquisitions should partners look like us want to get together and do something really big and we've had a few discussions going on. I can't talk about them but it is exciting for us as we begin to move forward in this market. We feel very bullish on the F&I segment. One of the things that we think is important is that so many dealers have new car department on their mind and used car department on their mind and they know that F&I makes them a lot of money but sometimes it falls down in the pecking order of focus. One of the things that I want our team to do is help the dealers maintain their focus on the critical profit center of F&I.
2. MARKETING OBJECTIVES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR 2010 & BEYOND
Last year was a crazy year in our industry. We had a lot of dealers that were on that list from General Motors or from Chrysler Corporation and we were very pleased at the end of the year. JM&A Group finished the year with the exact same number of dealers that we started the year with. The exact same number. I don't even know how that happened. We added some. We lost some but we were pleased that we kept our dealer base stable in a year like that where the industry contracted a bit.
One of the things that I believe is that - if we do our job properly - it will be impossible for us not to grow because as you know, we get our business, and sure we advertise and sure we market and sure we come to NADA and sure we get out and knock on a few doors, but at the end of the day, our business comes from referrals and we have earned more business from our dealers going to twenty group meetings or talking to their friends and talking about the performance of their F&I department. We get a lot of calls of people wanting to know what we do and how we do it. We can't help but naturally grow if we do our jobs right.
3. MANAGEMENT CHALLENGES
We need more hours in the day. There is so much opportunity out there for any of us that are in this business and we have great teams and they need feeding and they need management but we also like to get out there and mix it up ourselves and I just need more time in my day. That is my biggest challenge.
4. INDUSTRY & MARKET SITUATION
The JM family has three primary operating companies. We have the Toyota distributorship; the Southeast Toyota Distributors. We have Southeast Toyota Finance and World Omni which is our finance arm and then we have JM&A which is the F&I arm. We are very balanced and for our company, JM&A offers a great deal of diversity for JM family because as many people know, we do a lot of business with Toyota but quite frankly, our Toyota portfolio is about 18 percent and it essentially matches their market share. We spread across all lines. We also support Hyundai. We support Kia. We support Volkswagen and Audi in strategic partnerships. We also do a lot of business with Honda and Ford dealers and General Motors dealers throughout the country and we have a very good balance. I think that is important.
As you know, the auto business is a zero sum game. If one misses it, we think we are going to pick it up on the other side and that has been the key to our parent company supporting our diversity of our business.
5. MOST SIGNIFICANT ACCOMPLISHMENT
The economic crisis of 2009 affected industries and companies across the country, and we were no exception. However, out of tough decisions came the opportunity to reorganize our priorities, strengthen our team and refocus on the most important aspects of what we do to best serve our customers. We have been utilizing our resources to meet regional market demands and support our dealer lineup, including Southeast Toyota and growing OEM partners Kia, Hyundai, Volkswagen and Audi.
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