Dustin Gingerich, with a decade in the F&I business under his belt, shares his thoughts on leadership, building trust with customers, and the importance of learning and innovation.
F&I managers must adhere to a multitude of rules, whether they be state, federal or ethical. And one 2026 Ethical F&I Managers Conference speaker laid out his own "12 Rules for an F&I Life."
Dustin Gingerich, finance manager at Kokomo Auto World in Kokomo, Ind., was a first-time speaker at the conference but a third-time guest. When the opportunity to be a speaker came around, he said he'd been reading the book “The 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos” by Jordan Peterson and thought, “If I was going to make 12 rules for F&I, what would those be?”
Using his experience and knowledge gleaned over the years, he developed the following rules.
1. Protect the store. “Protecting the store is paramount because they are there to take care of you if you take care of them,” Gingerich said.
He laid out three priorities for managers to set: contracts in transit and customer service; moving fundable contracts into the office as soon as possible; and making money. The latter falls into the third spot because “you can’t make money if you don’t do the first two things,” he explained.
To put things into perspective, Gingerich shared that he uses the Eisenhower Matrix in his professional and personal lives to organize tasks and priorities. Under the matrix, tasks are categorized as important and urgent, important and not urgent, urgent and not important, or not important and not urgent.
For F&I managers he broke it down like this: If it’s important and urgent, do it now, especially deals. If it’s important but not urgent, do it later, such as customer callbacks. If it’s urgent but not important, delegate it, including picking up lunch. If it’s not important or urgent, drop it, for instance, scrolling social media.
2. Protect yourself. He shared a story about a time when a sales manager pushed him to do a bad deal, and he said no because he was “looking out for [his] store and protecting the dealer.” It was the right move, he said, and his chief financial officer backed him up.
“You will be asked to walk a line, and you have to have the constitution to be able to say no,” Gingerich said.
He went on to explain the importance of keeping a journal to record instances such as those because that can be used to protect yourself legally if a case were to be taken to court. And as a former law enforcement officer, he knows a thing or two about the court system.
3. Guard your mental and physical health. With a whole host of things to worry about on a daily basis, Gingerich acknowledged that F&I is a stressful career. That stress can lead to fear and anger, which he said is important to let go of while pursuing the things that make you happy.
He also stressed the importance of physical activity, sharing how his own experience after an injury seven years ago led him to become sedentary until he came to the realization that was no way to live. Through diet change, exercise and little things, like making the effort to move around the store and talk to customers, he improved his physical and mental health.
“You’ll use less sick time when you’re healthier because you’ll feel better. When you feel better mentally and physically, you’ll do better,” he said.
4. Be prepared. Gingerich credited a former teacher with showing him the seven Ps to live by: "proper prior planning prevents piss-poor performance." To help set up himself and his store for success, he said he gets to the store early so that he's ready to “engage the day” by the time the doors open and other people arrive.
5. Find the connection. “A salesperson has one to three hours to establish trust with a customer. You have five minutes,” he said. So how do you build the trust? He advised three ways:
· Leverage any mutual acquaintances
· Find a common interest
· Mirror any open customer body language
“If they like you, they’ll buy from you,” he said.
But how do you get a customer to like you? “Ask about them, talk about them, and let them talk about themselves.”
He shared an anecdote of a tough-negotiating customer. He asked the customer genuine questions and was able to establish a connection and understand his motivations and fears. They were able to close the deal and even sell products because of the connection that was made.
6. Be humble. Gingerich tackled the sensitive topic of pride and humility, admitting that it's common for people in the car business to be prideful but that “pride kills your [per-vehicle retail].”
He posed the question, “What do we feel when we lose?” His answer: shame. And what causes shame? Gingerich said he thinks it's pride.
Then he provided what he believes to be the antidote to shame: true humility.
“Only true humility can open your eyes to what’s possible,” he said. “If you can’t humble yourself, you’ll never see outside of what you know.”
7. Learn constantly. A running theme at this year’s conference was the importance of continuous education. That could be through training or conferences or, as Gingerich said he used to do, watching YouTube videos.
“If you think you know everything, get out of the business,” Gingerich said. “If you’re not learning, you’re going to kill the industry.”
He emphasized the importance of leaning on your community to share your ideas and ask others for their ideas.
“I have learned more at this conference than I have at any other training I have been to,” he said.
8. Innovate. Having the “it’s just the way we’ve always done it” mentality will cost you deals and money, he said. The industry is constantly evolving, and “if you can’t figure out a way to change, you’re going to go by the wayside.”
For example, artificial intelligence was a hot topic at both EFI and the co-located Agent Summit, and he said that F&I managers can use it to their advantage, especially since more consumers are using it in the car-buying process.
His advice: If you have an idea, set a specific length of time to try it out and see what your results are. You just might be surprised.
9. Be a leader. Gingerich said that as a leader “it is your duty to make the lives of the people around you better than you.” And an integral part of that is showing loyalty up and down the chain of command.
“You have to care about the people you’re responsible for,” he said. “If you don’t care about them, they’re not going to care about you.”
He explained that if people are involved in making the plan, they’ll have more buy-in, but you have to trust your people and ask for their input. You must also set the example with your words and actions because people notice. But you should avoid micromanaging.
For more leadership guidance, he recommended the book "Extreme Ownership: How Navy SEALs Lead and Win" by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin.
10. Dress for success. Gingerich conducted his own small-scale study to determine if the way he dressed affected his numbers. The simple answer: it does. He said his dealership sees a good mix of urban and rural customers, and those two demographics respond differently to F&I managers' dress, the rural customers being more open to less formal attire and the urban ones to the opposite.
It boils down to dressing for your customer base and taking into consideration the brand you work for.
11. ATTITUDE. “I would be nothing that I am today without the people who have helped me become who I am,” Gingerich said.
His 11th point is something he learned from previous EFI speaker and F&I expert GP Anderson:
Always make today your best.
Take pride in a job well done.
Treat tasks as opportunities.
Isolate negative thoughts.
Treat others with respect.
Utilize your talents daily.
Do the job right the first time.
Expect positive outcomes.
“I want to talk to the people who are doing it better than anyone else out there so that I can then be one of those guys,” he said. “And then I can pay it forward to someone else. You should be paying it forward.”
12. Have fun. This one is self-explanatory. Gingerich shared examples of ways he and his coworkers have had fun at work and outside of work. It ties back in to point number three: guarding your mental and physical health. Doing things that make you happy has a positive impact on your mental health, which has a direct impact on your work life.
