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Wednesday, October 22, 2008


One of our new motorcycle dealership customers made this nifty commercial, which he was airing in his local market to promote Guidepoint for Motorcycles. Our first full season selling Guidepoint for bikes was pretty good. Despite the tough economy, we managed to sign up several hundred dealers and the product got a good reception in the marketplace. We're hard at work on making our motorcycle unit "new and improved" for next spring.

We learned lots of lessons about the motorcycle market, confirming our decision to partner with experts in that channel and setting us up for next season. We're "car guys" who've spent a lot of years working with new and used car dealers, so it was crucial for us to find a channel partner who really understood (and had relationships) with the powersports/motorcylce channel.

Friday, October 10, 2008

No credit? No problem.

All of us at Guidepoint have always been somewhat contrarian. We tend to go against the grain because opportunities exist in spots where -- and when -- others aren't looking.

So, with the credit markets frozen and the number of car loans getting done dwindling every day, we've hired a guy to go out and build our business among finance companies. We just added Werner Scherz as a sales director to build our business among auto finance companies, particularly in the subprime and nonprime finance channels.

Even with money getting tight, there are still loans getting done, but lenders and dealers alike are looking for value-added services that can help them increase profits. And over the past two years, we've been developing a comprehensive range of services to help finance companies increase collections efficiency, reduce vehicle repossession costs, and enhance their relationships with dealers.

Werner's job is to go out and tell lenders about our services. He joins Guidepoint from Credit Acceptance Corporation, a Southfield, Mich.-based publicly traded sub-prime auto finance company. Previously, he spent a decade at Enterprise Fleet Services, a division of Enterprise Rent-A-Car. He brings a variety of experiences in sales, product development and remarketing to his new post.

Here's Rand's quote on Werner's addition to the Company: “Given the current turbulence in the financial sector and the limited access to capital, every company needs to be looking at ways to most efficiently and profitably deploy its capital. Guidepoint offers a service-oriented program that is proven to increase collection returns, reduce costs and strengthen the relationships between lenders and their dealers.”