NFA Finance

Sometimes the best business ideas aren’t new.

They’re the ones that have been sitting right in front of you for years.

I’ve spent more than 25 years in the car business.

Buying cars.
Selling cars.
Financing cars.
Evaluating deals.
Building relationships.

And one thing I’ve learned is that every dealer has the same problem:

Cars need work.

Not major work.

The little things.

A dirty interior.
Cloudy headlights.
Paint that needs attention.
A strange odor.
A vehicle that just isn’t ready for the front line.

The funny thing is I’ve seen this problem thousands of times.

But like a lot of people, I was always looking for the next big thing.

The next opportunity.

The next deal.

The next idea.

Meanwhile, the opportunity was sitting right in front of me.

Take a car.

Make it better.

Get it ready to sell.

Repeat.

Simple doesn’t mean easy.

But simple often wins.

Lately I’ve been thinking about building a dealer reconditioning operation at our Michigan location.

Not because it’s flashy.

Because it’s needed.

Every dealer wants clean, saleable inventory.

Every dealer wants vehicles that are ready for the lot.

Every dealer wants one less headache.

That’s where opportunity lives.

Not always in complicated ideas.

Sometimes in solving the same problem over and over again.

I’ve noticed something as I’ve gotten older.

The opportunities I’m most excited about today are usually the boring ones.

The repeatable ones.

The ones that create value whether the economy is booming or slowing down.

The older I get, the less interested I am in chasing shiny objects.

And the more interested I am in building systems.

A system can outlast motivation.

A system can outlast excitement.

A system can create freedom.

The truth is, some of the best businesses aren’t built on revolutionary ideas.

They’re built on doing ordinary things exceptionally well.

Maybe that’s the lesson.

Stop looking so far ahead that you miss what’s already in front of you.

Sometimes the business you should start is the one you’ve been looking at for years.

— Nicholas Francis