DALLAS -

Steve Roennau’s automotive career includes time as a training consultant for nearly a half dozen OEMs — Chrysler, General Motors, Ford, Mitsubishi and Hyundai. Roennau’s professional life also includes tenures in important roles at a dealership such as salesperson, used-car manager, new-car manager and F&I manager.

With that much experience and a knack for public speaking, EFG Companies made Roennau the centerpiece for what being dubbed its Common Sense Compliance platform. Officially launched on Wednesday, EFG highlighted that its Common Sense Compliance platform was designed to ease the challenges facing dealers and take the difficulty out of compliance by presenting the principles of compliance in an easy-to-understand manner, using layperson language with practical recommendations.

Roennau, who is vice president of compliance at EFG, explained during a conversation with SubPrime Auto Finance News that the Common Sense Compliance platform consists of three primary components:

1. Monthly podcasts featuring Roennau and discussions with industry experts, dealership principals, general managers and F&I managers on immediate, simple steps that dealers can take to significantly impact their compliance standards.

2. A video series with short, informational clips that dealers can share with their teams to make their compliance efforts more effective.

3. An ongoing compliance initiative for EFG clients that includes in-depth training, dealership assessments, and performance analysis.

Roennau acknowledged how precious the time is that stores allow for meetings and training sessions with their staffs

“Compliance is a big elephant if you’re trying to look at all of it all at once,” he said. “It helps a lot to break it down, make it those easy to digest, smaller bites for people. I think the audience appreciates that. They want it when they need it.

“A lot of times, they don’t have hours to do this,” continued Roennau, who holds certifications from the National Automotive Finance Association and the Association of Finance & Insurance Professionals.

“A lot of these managers, whether it’s an F&I manager or a sales manager, they’re going to have meetings with their staffs and people," he added. "They need to cover compliance as well as numerous other things in an effective way. Some of these videos and tips can assist with that. That can bring up, it plays for a minute and they can discuss anything around it that is pertinent to their dealership and move on to the rest of the business.

“It keeps compliance in front of them but it doesn’t drag down the other things they’re trying to accomplish,” he went on to say.

Roennau credited the EFG marketing department for leveraging technology to be able to deliver training material that only could be done by extensive travel and face-to-face interaction at dealerships.

“I’m not a real big tech person, but they make it easy for me,” Roennau said.

“Our message is just growing,” he added later during the conversation. “What we’re attempting to do is to play off our strength in compliance that we do every day at the dealership level and be able to use technology to spread that message to other dealers where we’re not in on a daily basis.”

The first episodes of the video series are available on the EFG Companies YouTube channel. The first podcast will air on March 22 at 10 a.m. CST.

“We are in a period of immense change, with shifting consumer demands, a technology revolution and increased compliance oversight,” EFG Companies president and chief executive officer John Pappanastos said in a news release. “This Common Sense Compliance platform better enables us to help dealers take ownership of the management of a compliant yet profitable business.

“At EFG, we pride ourselves in advancing the industry through our client engagement model.  This platform marks another step towards achieving that goal,” Pappanastos went on to say.

For more information on EFG’s upcoming podcasts and video series, visit this website.