DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 29, 2025--
EFG Companies has the ear of over 1,600 retail automotive and powersports dealers and hears the impacts of the current market and economic conditions. Success in the second half of 2025 will require a mixture of strategy, innovation, and preparation to combat the challenging forces disrupting sales and revenue generation. Here are the Top Five Questions we hear from dealer principals daily – and the experienced counsel we share with them. For more information, visithttps://bit.ly/4lLeCkx.
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Top Five Questions from Dealers
What business changes should we make now, given the uncertain economy?
Now is not the time to hunker down. While dealers cannot control market forces such as interest rates, tariffs, supply chain, and increasing inventory constraints, dealership owners can closely evaluate annual reinsurance and revenue generation goals. Dealers should consciously and comprehensively analyze personal wealth creation and profit metrics to ensure strong positions. Our Wealth Builder Profit Participation portfolio and Business Development Assessment process are proven tools for success.
How can we mitigate losses from tariffs?
A strategic focus on training and recruiting is a powerful weapon to fight the impacts of tariffs. Front-end margins and unit sales are anemic – the opportunity for dealers to shore up their business is through backend gross. To drive increased PRU and penetration, there is a need to modify behaviors that set in during COVID when front-end gross was at record highs. For training to deliver sustainable performance results, there must be a commitment from dealership management to support the processes learned in training and not revert to bad (perhaps more comfortable) habits. Ensuring pay plans are structured to motivate the desired behaviors is also key.
How can we drive more traffic to our dealership?
Consumer concerns about the economy, employment, and rising inflation will continue to impact dealer sales for the foreseeable future. Edmunds’ research shows auto finance metrics have reached record highs. Increasing traffic and online to on-lot sales requires dealers to refocus their people on the fundamentals. Traffic-driving and retention products, such as WALKAWAY ® and Drive Forever Worry Free from EFG, give consumers confidence in making a large purchase during challenging times, while increasing buyer loyalty and fixed operations revenue. The questions you should ask are 4-fold: Is it good for your brand? Is it good for the consumer? Is it good for your employees? And does it drive profit?
What changes should we make to our processes?
Artificial intelligence tools are all the buzz, driven by consumers’ growing online purchase habits, says Cox Automotive research. Dealers who focus on value-driven differentiation will overstep the competition. Delivering a “Why Buy Here” message at every customer interaction is key. Training across all divisions to reinforce customer interaction while delivering the right products for each individual customer must be an ingrained process.
How can we increase our margins and make more per sale?
When front-end margins shrink, backend margins must increase. Culture, behavior, and performance are key drivers that impact results. Dealers set the tone here and must go beyond traditional training methodologies to focus on needs-based selling that delivers results. Our data show that properly trained team members can generate an incremental $206,400 average annual F&I profit per producer per year.
“If we take the lessons learned from COVID and the Great Recession, we know the root cause issues impacting dealer profit,” said Jennifer Rappaport, CEO of EFG Companies. “Some of today’s challenges may be unique, but the underlying strategy is the same. With nearly 50 years of empirical data on training and consumer protection products, we intimately understand the challenges facing automotive and powersports dealers. Our dedication to a results-focused client engagement model that combines F&I products with a model-agnostic reinsurance portfolio has delivered proven results. We feel confident that our counsel will once again ensure our customers successfully weather these challenges.”
About EFG Companies
For nearly 50 years, EFG Companies has provided consumer protection programs for vehicles and residences across seven market channels. The company’s strategic intent is to build sustainable market differentiation and profitability for its clients and partners, including dealers, lenders, manufacturers, independent marketers, and agents. EFG’s award-winning engagement model is built upon the belief that the company serves as an extension of its clients’ management teams, providing ongoing F&I development, training, product development, compliance, and nationally recognized product administration with an ASE-certified claims team. Learn more about EFG at: www.efgcompanies.com.
EFG Companies has the ear of over 1,600 retail automotive and powersports dealers, and they have shared their concerns for the second half of 2025.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Most American presidents aspire to the kind of greatness that prompts future generations to name important things in their honor.
Donald Trump isn't leaving it to future generations.
As the first year of his second term wraps up, his administration and allies have put the president’s name on the U.S. Institute of Peace, the Kennedy Center performing arts venue and a new class of battleships.
That’s on top of the “Trump Accounts” for tax-deferred investments, the TrumpRx government website soon to offer direct sales of prescription drugs, the “Trump Gold Card” visa that costs at least $1 million and the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a transit corridor included in a deal his administration brokered between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
On Friday, he plans to attend a ceremony in Florida where local officials will dedicate a 4-mile (6-kilometer) stretch of road from the airport to his Mar-a-Lago estate as President Donald J. Trump Boulevard.
It’s unprecedented for a sitting president to embrace tributes of that number and scale, especially those proffered by members of his administration. And while past sitting presidents have typically been honored by local officials naming schools and roads after them, it's exceedingly rare for airports, federal buildings, warships or other government assets to be named for someone still in power.
“At no previous time in history have we consistently named things after a president who was still in office,” said Jeffrey Engel, the David Gergen Director of the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “One might even extend that to say a president who is still alive. Those kind of memorializations are supposed to be just that — memorials to the passing hero.”
White House spokeswoman Liz Huston said the TrumpRx website linked to the president's deals to lower the price of some prescription drugs, along with “overdue upgrades of national landmarks, lasting peace deals, and wealth-creation accounts for children are historic initiatives that would not have been possible without President Trump’s bold leadership.”
"The Administration’s focus isn’t on smart branding, but delivering on President Trump’s goal of Making America Great Again," Huston said.
The White House pointed out that the nation's capital was named after President George Washington and the Hoover Dam was named after President Herbert Hoover while each was serving as president.
For Trump, it’s a continuation of the way he first etched his place onto the American consciousness, becoming famous as a real estate developer who affixed his name in big gold letters on luxury buildings and hotels, a casino and assorted products like neckties, wine and steaks.
As he ran for president in 2024, the candidate rolled out Trump-branded business ventures for watches, fragrances, Bibles and sneakers — including golden high tops priced at $799. After taking office again last year, Trump's businesses launched a Trump Mobile phone company, with plans to unveil a gold-colored smartphone and a cryptocurrency memecoin named $TRUMP.
That’s not to be confused with plans for a physical, government-issued Trump coin that U.S. Treasurer Brandon Beach said the U.S. Mint is planning.
Trump has also reportedly told the owners of Washington’s NFL team that he would like his name on the Commanders’ new stadium. The team’s ownership group, which has the naming rights, has not commented on the idea. But a White House spokeswoman in November called the proposed name “beautiful” and said Trump made the rebuilding of the stadium possible.
The addition of Trump’s name to the Kennedy Center in December so outraged independent Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont that he introduced legislation this week to ban the naming or renaming of any federal building or land after a sitting president — a ban that would retroactively apply to the Kennedy Center and Institute of Peace.
“I think he is a narcissist who likes to see his name up there. If he owns a hotel, that’s his business,” Sanders said in an interview. “But he doesn’t own federal buildings.”
Sanders likened Trump's penchant for putting his name on government buildings and more to the actions of authoritarian leaders throughout history.
“If the American people want to name buildings after a president who is deceased, that’s fine. That’s what we do,” Sanders said. “But to use federal buildings to enhance your own position very much sounds like the ‘Great Leader’ mentality of North Korea, and that is not something that I think the American people want.”
Although some of the naming has been suggested by others, the president has made clear he’s pleased with the tributes.
Three months after the announcement of the Trump Route for International Peace and Prosperity, a name the White House says was proposed by Armenian officials, the president gushed about it at a White House dinner.
“It’s such a beautiful thing, they named it after me. I really appreciate it. It’s actually a big deal,” he told a group of Central Asian leaders.
Engel, the presidential historian, said the practice can send a signal to people "that the easiest way to get access and favor from the president is to play to his ego and give him something or name something after him.”
Some of the proposals for honoring Trump include legislation in Congress from New York Republican Rep. Claudia Tenney that would designate June 14 as “Trump’s Birthday and Flag Day," placing the president with the likes of Martin Luther King Jr., George Washington and Jesus Christ, whose birthdays are recognized as national holidays.
Florida Republican Rep. Greg Steube has introduced legislation that calls for the Washington-area rapid transit system, known as the Metro, to be renamed the “Trump Train.” North Carolina Republican Rep. Addison McDowell has introduced legislation to rename Washington Dulles International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport.
McDowell said it makes sense to give Dulles a new name since Trump has already announced plans to revamp the airport, which currently is a tribute to former Secretary of State John Foster Dulles.
The congressman said he wanted to honor Trump because he feels the president has been a champion for combating the scourge of fentanyl, a personal issue for McDowell after his brother’s overdose death. But he also cited Trump’s efforts to strike peace deals all over the world and called him “one of the most consequential presidents ever.”
“I think that’s somebody that deserves to be honored, whether they’re still the president or whether they’re not," he said.
More efforts are underway in Florida, Trump’s adopted home.
Republican state lawmaker Meg Weinberger said she is working on an effort to rename Palm Beach International Airport as Donald J. Trump International Airport, a potential point of confusion with the Dulles effort.
The road that the president will see christened Friday is not the first Florida asphalt to herald Trump upon his return to the White House.
In the south Florida city of Hialeah, officials in December 2024 renamed a street there as President Donald J. Trump Avenue.
Trump, speaking at a Miami business conference the next month, called it a “great honor” and said he loved the mayor for it.
“Anybody that names a boulevard after me, I like,” he said.
He added a few moments later: “A lot of people come back from Hialeah, they say, ‘They just named a road after you.' I say, ‘That’s OK.’ It’s a beginning, right? It’s a start.”
FILE - A sign for the Rose Garden is seen near the Presidential Walk of Fame on the Colonnade at the White House, Jan. 13, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, File)
FILE - President Donald Trump speaks with reporters as a flag pole is installed on the South Lawn of the White House, June 18, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci, File)
FILE - Workers add President Donald Trump's name to the John F. Kennedy Memorial Center for the Performing Arts, after a Trump-appointed board voted to rename the institution, in Washington, Dec. 19, 2025. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
FILE - A poster showing the Trump Gold Card is seen as President Donald Trump signs executive orders in the Oval Office of the White House, Sept. 19, 2025, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon, file)
