The College of Automotive Management (The College) is a wholly owned subsidiary of its parent company, The Lloyd Andersen Group of Companies (LAGC).

Unlike any individual person who has started their own training program for dealers, The College is an institution that was formed, and has evolved, by the continuous contribution of dozens of industry professionals and experts, including the professionals at LAGC. Those industry experts include nationally recognized trainers and teachers featured in various industry magazines, and those who have served as guest speakers and experts on various sales and F&I panels at National Conventions (such as NADA, Special Finance, and F&I Management’s National Convention). Those experts also include alumni of The College who have become executive officers and managers of large, national automotive companies, and owners of their own dealerships who continue to contribute their knowledge, expertise and experience to The College.

In order for curriculum to make its way into a College of Automotive Management training program however, that curriculum has to be reviewed and approved by LAGC’s leadership team in order to confirm that the curriculum content meets several strict standards including, but not limited to:

- The curriculum must teach processes and procedures that are right by all parties so it can produce happy customers that understand their purchase resulting in more repeat and referral business for the dealer.
- The curriculum must encourage full disclosures, legal compliance, and reveal to the customer the integrity of the dealer and the integrity of the employees representing the dealer.
- The curriculum must provide current, best in class solutions to produce the maximum amount of gross profit possible, which we have confirmed over the last 20 years only occurs when the above two standards are first met and embraced. (The most profitable business for a dealer is their repeat and referral business).
- The curriculum needs to be able to be used to support any sales system a dealer may have in their store including straight sell, desk control, TO system, or any variation of these systems.

Brief History of The College of Automotive Management

• In 1992, LAGC was the first to develop a career college, The College of Automotive Management, focused on automotive sales and F&I management training for the automotive and lending industries, with an emphasis on prime, and non prime (special finance) loan underwriting procedures.

• The original curriculum was designed to provide the most comprehensive special finance training so that LAGC could attract business professionals from outside of the automotive industry and place them as manned locations into LAGC dealers to manage special finance departments after 4 weeks of training. The position required individuals to have an intricate knowledge of sales procedures, desking procedures, closing procedures, F&I procedures and presentations, cash flow management (contracts in transit), and loan underwriting, and lending practices.

• Therefore, the curriculum included best in class sales training, desk training, F&I training, and F&I Director training in addition to the special finance training to help create the most knowledgeable and capable special finance manager possible. Due to the College’s emphasis on educational excellence, The College obtained validation when awarded with federal accreditation, state approval, and an articulation agreement with Northwood University allowing graduates of the The College of Automotive Management up to 30 College Credits towards a Northwood degree. The manned location program was a huge success and LAGC established hundreds of manned locations within dealers selling LAGC products including loans, service contracts, credit insurance, aftermarket products, anti-theft products, software, and LAGC training.

• By 1998, The College was attracting individuals from nearly all professions imaginable to the lucrative automotive industry, training them in sales and management expertise, and then placing them with automotive industry employers who were eager to support the candidates with full tuition reimbursement programs.

As a result of this history and success since 1992 (20 years of continuous development), the College of Automotive Management is the only automotive training company that has achieved the following:

• Graduated thousands of students who enjoy successful careers in the automotive industry as alumni of The College. You can read many of their stories, or watch their videos, in the testimonial section of the website.
• Provided hundreds of employers including dealers, lenders, aftermarket companies, and F&I training companies with motivated, knowledgeable, career minded employees. To see a partial list of those employers visit the Employers page of the website.
• Become the only training company in the automotive industry to gain the consumer confidence required for thousands of automotive salespeople to pay as much as $14,000+ out of their own pockets to attend The College to improve their business, and further their career.
• Become the only automotive training company to gain the confidence and support of hundreds of dealers who offered to fully reimburse the $14,000+ tuition, at the rate of $500 per month, already paid by graduates looking for employment if the graduate would choose to work for the dealer.
• Become the only state approved career school in California to gain the confidence and support of dealers nationally who paid the entire tuition for key employees they wanted to promote from within.
• Become the only state approved career school in the automotive industry to document the increase of PVR for hundreds of “experienced” F&I Managers who attended Advanced 3 Day F&I Training Seminars (The F&I Advantage Program – advanced F&I training). Dealers paid $1,500 per F&I Manager, and their entire F&I department was required to participate, then LAGC guaranteed the dealer that their F&I income would increase – or offer a full refund if it did not. There was never a dealer that qualified, or asked for a refund.

The College continues to evolve in order to meet the needs of supportive dealers and students. Virtual classroom environments are now available at The College of Automotive Management. In addition to virtual classroom environments, LAGC is also introducing to dealers the most innovative solution LAGC has ever developed to help LAGC dealers sell more vehicles, retain their best salespeople longer, and increase F&I income.

Now, every salesperson in every dealership across America can attend Automotive Career Training provided by The College of Automotive Management, without missing any time at work, at a fraction of the original cost by participating in virtual classroom programs.

And for those dealers offering tuition reimbursement to their own staff and encouraging salespeople to attend Automotive Career Training provided by The College, their salespeople are provided a better business plan to bring in their own customers, and ensure their own success.

In addition to being trained and given the tools to develop their own business plan to create their own traffic, salespeople are cross trained in current F&I, Special Finance, and Desking strategies. As those salespeople graduate from the College’s Automotive Career Training program, they provide their employers (their dealer) with new options to solve age old problems and profit leaks that dealers have had to live with for decades. Sales increase without increasing advertising budgets, gross profit per transaction increases, F&I product sales increase, customer satisfaction increases, repeat and referral business increases, and dealers retain their best employees longer.

Members of LAGC’s direct sales force, and select F&I product agencies (agents) are also being equipped to bring to their dealers the latest LAGC training solutions for sales, F&I, Special Finance, and the Desk through advanced seminars, in-dealership training, and other virtual classroom delivery options.