CAM Success Spotlight – Tammy (Semon) Vu
You might wonder if it’s possible to go from having zero automotive experience to landing a Finance Manager position at a prestigious dealership. We’re here to tell you that it’s not only possible, it can be expected when you earn your F&I Manager Certification online from the College of Automotive Management (CAM)!
This week, our featured success spotlight is on CAM Graduate Tammy (Semon) Vu, who has achieved remarkable success and career advancements since enrolling with the College!
“I was not employed with a dealer, nor did I have any prior automotive experience. I was a dealer at a casino when I first enrolled at College of Automotive Management,” said Tammy. “During my online F&I training and Sales Management Training, I received employment in F&I at a Land Rover-Jaquar-Audi dealership in Los Angeles California!”
Tammy had wanted to get into the automotive business for years and finally decided to start by investing in the nation’s highest rated F&I Manager training through the College of Automotive Management. Tammy fell in love with CAM’s F&I Manager Certification Courses, and also completed the automotive Sales Manager Certification program. This gave her a complete understanding of the Sales and F&I processes in automotive retail. In fact, she was so well equipped that she excelled at her first position as an F&I Manager, without any prior automotive experience. Here are some of Tammy’s comments from her online training at the College of Automotive Management:
Sales Manager Desking, Presentations and Negotiations
“The Professional Desking and Negotiating online training course was excellent. I would highly recommend to others as I found the examples and responses to objections insightfully empowering me to respond better to various sale scenarios. I received valuable information on how to respond to several different show stoppers that may hinder a sale and how to utilize monthly payments. The key element of successful desking is letting the customer know that my team and I are on their side. This will build a trusting relationship with my customer, it’s very important to let them know that I am here for them. Everyone needs to be on the same page…consistency brings success.”
Leasing Structures, Presentations and Disclosures
“The online Leasing Structures, Presentations & Disclosures course was excellent. It provided excellent training material that took me step by step through the lease. I would highly recommend this course to others. I have to say I have never been more excited after going thru the Leasing Structures, Presentation & Disclosures course, I loved it!! It really broke the leasing process down so that I could understand. I know that this course will help me hold the gross profit in a lease and will also produce more sales knowing that I now can use a lease option to help a customer get a lower payment, less out of pocket and a shorter term. I love my customers and in return they, their friends, and family will love me too!”
Loan Underwriting and F&I Administration
“The online F&I Administration training was excellent with excellent content. I would highly recommend this to others and have already done so! This course was truly great; I am really excited to learn more, each course just gets better! It has taught me to make sure I know my lenders, become friends with them to ensure I have leverage, so I know when I send them contracts the contracts represent a profit to the lender! I now know how to deal with overcoming their objections, such as lack of down payment. If I know my lenders I will know exactly where to send each deal to make sure I get my approval. As an F&I Manager I should have a great understanding of my options. The F&I Manager should know credit score, year, make, model, and mileage of the vehicle being purchased, as well as how much down payment, monthly payment, advance ratio, and APR.”
Subprime (Special Finance) Structures, Presentations and Disclosures
“The online F&I Subprime Structures, Presentations & Disclosures training was EXCELLENT!!! I would highly recommend to others! Doing this course on my own I realized as I went through each of the elements I know for certain that this is what I was meant to do, this is my passion; I absolutely loved this course! There are a lot of subprime and special finance customers out there and we can help them. I want to make my customers excited about their new purchase. I love it, I absolutely love it.”
F&I Products and Professional F&I Selling Process and Disclosures
“The online F&I Products Benefit Presentation was EXCELLENT! Customers will give me the time if I have developed a relationship and trust. What matters most is that all of the customers leave HAPPY, fully understanding their purchase. This will bring possible repeat customers and provide referrals. I believe everyone in the dealership should watch these videos and understand the importance of becoming the customers’ friend. If we love, love, love our customers we know they will truly be happy and if we show our enthusiasm it will bring them enthusiasm. I only get what I give. I need to give 110% of myself to the customer letting them know I really do care about their needs and wants. Doing this with each customer whether they were sold a car or not builds a trusting friendship. If every dealership took the extra 2 minutes to make sure their customers were completely happy they would get a lot more referrals and repeat customers! I believe it should be every businesses number 1 goal to have 100% CSI. Love, love, love your customers!! HELP CUSTOMERS GET BEST TERMS-BE FRIENDLY, BE HELPFUL.”
“The College’s Proprietary F&I Sales Process taught online was excellent and I would highly recommend it to others. This is a great training course for F&I managers and Sales Managers. I believe if every dealership implemented this training they would close every customer or close to. Customers want to feel loved, liked, and appreciated. By following the steps outlined in this course there is no way customers would leave not feeling loved. My number 1 objective is to make sure the customer is HAPPY and fully understands terms of purchase. Now that I’m dealing with a customer who became my new friend, I’m only going to suggest products they really need and fully explain their value.”
Leadership in Sales Management
“The Leadership in Sales Management course was excellent and it has given me so many valuable modules, tools, and ideas to utilize in the workplace and share with my team. My ultimate goal upon completing this course was to become an F&I Manager, and by taking this course I was successful in landing a position as an F&I Manager without any prior automotive experience. I am very grateful for the experience and knowledge I received from the College of Automotive Management. This course provided excellent training material to manage a successful team. Through this Leadership course I also realized I want to be a motivational person professionally and personally. I want to inspire myself and others to be the best they can be. I want to be a positive influence on anyone I interact with. I want to be a role model for my friends, family, and co-workers. This Leadership emphasized what I have lived by: There is no “I” in team. Everyone must work together to better the customer service experience and help each other to close the sale. The sale starts the moment the customer steps foot on the lot or outside their car door from the new sales team to used cars to service and front desk.”
Tammy reflected on her experience and said, “By enrolling in these courses at the College of Automotive Management, I was taking the first step to achieving my passion and goal I set 10 years before. I learned also through the Leadership course that by establishing obtainable goals maintained and achieved by monitoring activity through metric management, I would not only be able to track my progress, but that of my team, and establish realistic goals based on facts and historical data such as peak period within a month, quarter, or year. This allowed me to not only establish appropriately matched goals to meet my departments budgets based on facts, but also set goals based on promotion type, season, or holiday, while adequately staffing my sales team based on key performance indicators such as traction to the dealership to that of sales.”
A Vision for Success
Tammy is a goal-oriented woman with a desire to excel in Leadership. She has a heart to demonstrate her leadership by letting her team members know she truly cares. She does this through honesty and trust, and leading from her heart. She also shared her thoughts on how to accomplish this on a practical level:
“I make sure I get to know each person on my team, so I know what motivates them, and I am their friend as well as their manager. I need to earn their respect by listening to them, understanding their desire to succeed in life, and find out what their daily, weekly, monthly and even lifetime goals are. By knowing these things about my team members, I can help motivate them by reminding them that if you set your mind to it, you can accomplish anything. I’m a good example of that.”
Since Tammy graduated from CAM’s F&I Manager Training program, she has gone on to be a F&I Manager at two different Audi Dealerships, and is now the Senior Vice President of Business Development and Training for an automotive insurance company.
That’s right, CAM’s courses prepare our graduates for much more than F&I Manager positions alone. Our programs are gifts that keep on giving as the principles, concepts and practical applications taught in our courses prepare our graduates for success in a multitude of high paying automotive lending, insurance and management careers. College of Automotive Management online F&I, Lending and Sales Management courses give our graduates a solid foundation on which they can build all kinds of high-paying careers within and outside the automotive industry. Tammy’s story is a perfect example of how our courses paved the way to many new high paying career opportunities for her!
“Thank you College of Automotive Management for making it convenient and fast to learn what my goals are and that my dreams are not that far out of reach!” – Tammy (Semon) Vu
Thank you, Tammy, for being the fantastic leader you are and for embracing the principles of loving others first! We’re honored to have you as one of our esteemed graduates and alumni!
