If you’ve had your hand in special finance for any amount of time, you know that tax refunds can cure many ills. You probably have a folder in the bottom drawer for deals that you could have put together if they only had a little more money to put down, and you’re hanging on to the hope that you can get some of them to come back in once they get their refund. You may get a couple of them, but the reality is that the “be back bus” doesn’t come nearly as often as we would like. More likely, whatever marketing you do from January 1 through the middle of February is going to determine how profitable your tax season will be.

As we enter tax time, take a few minutes to make sure that you are ready. Spend a little time during this “13th month” to review the last 90 days’ dead deals and identify the ones that may be salvageable with a little help from the IRS. Try to devote a half hour per day to calling a few of these to touch base and see if they are still in the market. The key is to just make this a check in call, ask about their holidays and if they kids got all the toys they wanted. When they hear your voice they will be bracing for a sales pitch, so throw them off a little and let them know that you care about them as people.

If you don’t buy your own inventory this is the time to review what you have, and determine how you can help bail your used car manager out of a couple on which he may have over stepped. While we’d all love to be in every car a couple grand behind the left side, it is likely that in order to put together a couple more December deals some aggressive numbers were put on some trades, and now your into them at or above retail. Identify them now and figure out how much down you will need to get them on the street.

Tax time is an exciting couple months in the special finance department, and this year should be better than the last couple. Not many sub-prime buyers were able to take advantage of cash for clunkers, and the inventories have come back after a few months of having our best cars turned into little metal rectangles. A little preparation will go a long way into making your first quarter into the jump start that your department needs.

Cheers to tax season!