Grounded by a shared vision, Spartan Financial Partners has issued a challenge across its business to evaluate processes and take the Initiative to improve.
Spartan Financial Partners, a division of American Credit Acceptance, specializes in providing capital solutions that meet the diverse needs of buy-here pay-here dealers and independent auto finance companies across the country. The business is split up into a Bulk Purchase Program, where dealers and finance companies can sell a portion of their auto loan portfolio, and a Line of Credit Program, which allows dealers and finance companies to pledge their auto loan portfolios as collateral for a business loan. Both programs enable dealers and finance companies to improve their working capital and strengthen their financial foundations.
In late 2021, the leadership team saw an opportunity to unite their team around a new purpose statement, which would provide a strong foundation for continued growth and improve the dealer experience. “Succeeding Made Simple” was rolled out with the challenge for associates to show Initiative and Principled Entrepreneurship to simplify processes anywhere they could. Ultimately, the goal of Succeeding Made Simple was to find ways to make Spartan’s program easier and more transparent for its dealer and finance company partners and to improve internal communication and processes that fostered better client relationships and lower operating expenses. Each associate was equally responsible for driving the vision forward.
“In order to continue to grow our business, we must have a continuous improvement mindset in the way we manage our processes,” said John McDermott, Senior Director, Assets, Acquisitions, and Analysis, “Making these changes to our internal processes allows for growth and scalability, improves our dealer partners’ experience, and ultimately frees up our associates’ time to have more meaningful interactions with our dealer partners.”
Since its launch, Spartan associates have created new system checklists that promote visibility and easy collaboration, translated welcome materials into Spanish to better serve our dealer partners, and streamlined their reporting processes to leverage new technologies. Additionally, the team has listened to dealer feedback and responded by improving Spartan’s response time and providing streamlined credit reporting.
As a result of this teamwork, Spartan’s Line of Credit team closed 14 major deals in 2021, which set a record for number of deals closed in Spartan’s history. They also hit a record for total Assets Under Management. On the Bulk side of the business, records were also set by creating over $80 million in originations last year. Additionally, in 10 of the 12 months in 2021, Spartan closed more deals than any other months in its history.
In 2022, Spartan has continued to add to its dealer and finance company network by adding more than 50 new partners and focusing on making improvements that can add value internally and for our external partners.