Free checklist
Switch systems without losing anything
Five sections, about ninety items, written by people who run a dealership and moved theirs. No product names. Print it, hand it around, argue about the ones you skip.
What is inside
- Before you look at anything newWhat to write down about the systems you use today, the records in them, and what the office depends on.
- Questions for the new companyThe questions that show whether they have moved a dealership's records before, or are about to learn on yours.
- Moving your recordsWhere the mistakes happen: matching up columns, messy data, the same customer twice, half-done deals, and how to undo a bad import.
- Switch dayBoth systems for a while or all at once, locking the old one, who does what that day, and the two-week list of things that break quietly.
- The first 30 daysIs the team really using it, which reports to rebuild first, and when to shut off the old system.
Three of the items
- Find the notes. The typed notes are where the relationships actually live, and no export moves them cleanly.
- "If I load the same file twice by mistake, what happens?" The right answer has the word "warning" in it before the word "duplicate."
- Never let the software combine two people on its own when either one has an open deal or a loan. A person checks those.
Five sections, one PDF
Before you look at anything new, questions for the new company, moving your records, switch day, and the first 30 days. Each item says why it matters. A one-page switch-day sheet is at the back.
People who did it the hard way
We run a dealership. We spent a year on an off-the-shelf CRM before moving everything off it. Most of this list exists because we got the thing in the checkbox wrong the first time.