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Powersports Finance podcast interview-20260505_130246-Meeting Recording
May 5, 2026, 6:02PM
20m 35s
Johnnie Martinez started transcription
Johnnie Martinez 0:05
Fantastic. Okay, well, thank you so much for joining us today. And start with introduction, Johnny Martinez, Deputy Editor of Auto Finance News and Power Sports Finance. And today I'm joined by Susan Medrano of Synchrony, and I'll let her introduce herself further.
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 0:22
Oh, thank you, Johnnie. Susan Medrano. I'm the Senior Vice President and General Manager of Synchrony Outdoors, which means all things power sports.
Johnnie Martinez 0:33
Fantastic. Well, thank you so much for joining us today. And to get into the wider discussion as to, you know, what's happening in the marketplace, we're getting into the month of May ahead of, you know, kind of the summer. And from what we've seen, from what we've read from what Synchrony has put out, right,
You know, May is a critical month of the year for power sports dealers. And so I want to get your perspective on why May is such a critical month for those dealers and how has the pace of buying decisions changed in recent years ahead of, you know, things like summer?
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 1:10
Sure. So, you know, but when you start to get into April and May and as the weather changes and really kind of going through probably July, sometimes that buying period is extended a little bit, you know, all things centered around the weather. Because if you buy something and can't use it, then, you know, people want to actually be able to get outdoors.
But it's critical because of that short window when riders can really get out on both the trails or on the road if you're doing 2 rd, two-wheel vehicles. Sorry, I couldn't get that out this morning. But it's really important because that buying window for peak season is so narrow.
And so if a consumer, especially somebody who's an enthusiast who wants to do it during peak season, and that's really when they're going to ride, if the consumer doesn't purchase during that window, they may not purchase till next year. So it's really important to make sure that the consumer that they buy when they come into the dealership and are taking advantage of those riding periods.
Johnnie Martinez 2:18
Fantastic. And I think that's a, you know, sort of building on that, right? Understanding that the window is so short for so many of these buyers to really purchase a unit and be in the marketplace when the peak writing season is going. What are maybe some of the reasons that people would hesitate at point of sale when it comes to, you know, some of these
higher ticket purchases or even the medium ticket purchases that you'll see in the off-road and the motorcycle space and with that understanding that it is such a short window and so any hesitation could take them out of the season entirely.
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 2:49
Yeah. So I think, you know, this is a very unique time in the world where, you know, the economic situation is evolving almost daily. And that, you know, tends to sometimes weigh on people. Also, gas prices are a factor for folks as well. So affordability for these units is really important.
And a key element of affordability is how am I going to pay for it? And as you think about a consumer, you know, about 81% of shoppers, when you think of a big purchase like an ATV that can cost up to, you know, you have them as low as 4,000, but they go up as high as 50 in some cases.
The consumer is very attuned to that whole process of financing. And so they're doing research before they get to the dealership. They want to understand what their options are. And so it's really critical that dealers think about what they're presenting on their websites in terms of financing.
for the vehicle so that the consumer comes in credit confident.
Johnnie Martinez 3:57
Fantastic. And you sort of touched on this earlier as far as, you know, how important it is for dealers to make these sales during this period is because sometimes it'll push them back as far as into the next year, the next buying season. Is that what you guys are seeing the most of synchrony as far as, you know, how big of a risk it is for dealers to lose?
a peak season sale of customer walks away and or are there even a larger group that don't even come back.
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 4:23
I think it's a little bit of both. And honestly, the dealers have the best metrics for a specific consumer, whether they came in or not, because I'm going to see them once they apply. And generally speaking, a consumer's not going to apply unless they're serious about making the purchase. But I would say that one of the other factors that
Johnnie Martinez 4:34
Right.
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 4:43
dealers often think about is it's not just the sale today, that's the start of the relationship with the consumer. Because once they purchase, you know, the service department is actually a huge revenue driver for the dealership and often carries the dealership through times that are off
peak. So getting that consumer to purchase now leads to other revenue opportunities for the dealer over time. So it also leads to an opportunity to maybe they need a new helmet or they want more gear, but it gives the consumer a reason to come back to the dealership and drive revenue.
So that's one of the reasons why it's super important that they get the consumer now.
Build that relationship and the trust.
Johnnie Martinez 5:30
Gotcha. No, that makes a ton of sense. And yeah, obviously the start of the discussion has been sort of around the peak buying season that is sort of this time of the year. But to your point, it really is still a year-round process. Even if the vehicle purchases are sort of peaking right now, there's so many other elements to it that still make it a year-round.
Cycle.
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 5:50
That's right.
Johnnie Martinez 5:52
Okay, and sort of, you touched on this as well earlier, talking about the affordability component of it all, right? How has affordability pressure really changed the way customers are approaching the power support purchase process, the financing process that you guys deal with at Synchrony as far as what you're experiencing
In terms of that component.
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 6:15
I think we're seeing the financing start much sooner in the process, whether that's the consumer doing some research before they get there. You know, AI is certainly an aspect of this now. You can go to ChatGPT or Gemini or, you know, whichever platform might be your preference and do research.
Before you ever get there, you can go to the dealer's website and do research on financing. But really, I think the dealers that do the best job are actually integrating that into the sales process while they're on the sales floor before they ever get to the finance office. So oftentimes when the salesperson is working with the customer,
they're understanding what's the most sensitivity for the customer. Is it the monthly payment or is it the total ticket price? Or maybe it's a combination of the two. And so they're able to layer into their discussions. If it's the monthly payment, for example, they could talk about the different terms that it would be available, like whether it's 36 months or it's 84 months.
and the difference that that makes to the consumer. The same with total ticket price. If they know that's the pressure point for the consumer, they structure their conversations around that and maybe either add-on accessories or things that they can give to the consumer as part of the deal that makes that more palatable to the consumer.
So starting earlier on the sales floor.
Johnnie Martinez 7:44
Okay, no, that makes a ton of sense. And you sort of touched on it there as far as, you know, the role that being able to offer these flexible financing terms, right? Flexible financing plays in the whole ecosystem. You know, how, really get into the maybe the practical side of it, how does flexible financing
help dealers kind of convert more in-market buyers during this kind of shorter, not only selling window, but the shorter peak selling window.
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 8:12
Because they have tons of options available to them. They could have a promotional lower APR for the consumer that's available through the OEM programs. They also have, maybe they're going to give the consumer more add-ons to the bike if they're purchasing a motorcycle or they're adding, you know, a tow hitch or something to either a side-by-side or an ATV.
And doing that, understanding the full package and then moving into the term for the loan is really going to be important because the consumer could in fact decide that they don't want the promotional financing. They want to do a regular standard rate loan.
because they're going to get other things from the dealership by going that direction. So having somebody who's super knowledgeable about how all of that works is really key. So whether that's the finance person or whether that's a combination of the salesperson and the finance person working together. And then in addition to that, you know, Synchrony does offer other products like the Outdoors card.
that a consumer can apply for right there in dealership that enables them to think a little bit longer term, like after I get this unit home, how am I going to pay for servicing? What if I forgot that I wanted to get another helmet or something? They could come back in and they can use the outdoors card and get a promotional based financing that enables them to continue on that journey.
in a very affordable way.
Johnnie Martinez 9:45
Okay, now that makes a lot of sense. And one thing I wanted to get into, because it sort of plays a factor in what you were just talking about, is how maybe the smaller, the independent dealers, maybe managing the whole financing process and working with Synchrony, whether it's the traditional financing or the outdoors card, versus maybe some of the larger dealerships in the market that
If for nothing else, just have more resources than those smaller, those independent dealerships.
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 10:11
I think oftentimes you find, you know, the power, one of the things I love about power sports is it's a lot of family-owned businesses. And so you, in a small dealership, you often have people who are wearing more than one hat. The salesperson might also be doing the financing or
you know, hey, it could be mom and son, mom and daughter, and they know each other well enough to be able to work the deal in a way that makes the consumer feel comfortable in the environment that they're in, but also focuses, again, you know, this is sort of redundant a little bit because they're focusing in on.
what is the most important to the consumer and that customer making sure that they're addressing that as part of the process. And I think the earlier that they introduce financing, the smoother that process goes. So I would say that the smaller dealerships, the sooner they do that in the selling process, the easier that selling process is going to be.
The worst thing that can happen is you get a customer to a finance desk and then they get sticker shock over the payment. You don't want that to happen.
Johnnie Martinez 11:15
It.
Gotcha. And I was curious, sort of building on that, on your guys's end on the synchrony and the financing end, what do you do to really help support that process, right? Obviously, it's their process to get it to you and to manage the financing, but what role are you playing in maybe helping some of those smaller, the more independent dealers?
kind of work with you guys to get that process going sooner with that understanding that you have from the experience that you all have.
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 11:48
There's a couple of things. You know, the consumer can apply online before they ever get to the finance desk if they want to do that. Or when they're applying at the dealership, the dealer can actually send the application to the consumer's phone and they can do it there. So they can literally do it on the sales floor while they're looking at the app and while they're looking at the unit if they want to.
But one of the things that makes it a lot easier for the dealers that we do is we have a process called all in advance. And so when the loan first comes to us, we don't make the dealer itemize every single thing that the consumer wants. We have them put in a total purchase amount if there's a trade-in or not.
And it makes that initial process super easy. I mean, ultimately, they do have to, you know, put everything that's the consumer's buying into the contract, but that comes at a later step. So we're trying to make the buying process as frictionless as possible so that they know that they have a consumer that's credit qualified.
Johnnie Martinez 12:54
Okay, no, that makes a lot of sense as well. I think the speed of it, right, the frictionless nature of it, is fascinating given, you know, everything we've heard over the last really year or so as far, or really few years, as far as, you know, the writers that have been in the industry versus the new writers that everyone is trying to
find their way to get into the industry. And so, you know, the people who have been here have more experience in that regard, have been through maybe the financing process before. The new riders, people who are coming from the outside or even people who have been out for a long time, I imagine their only comparison point is auto. So it's a different understanding as far as that comes in. For you when it comes to
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 13:29
Yeah.
Johnnie Martinez 13:36
supporting the financing, supporting the dealers on that side of it, and working with maybe riders or customers that don't have the same experience. What are you advice that you guys are giving them or support you guys are giving them with that understanding of it's just going to look different for that part of it, but there's a push to get so many new riders in the industry, especially over the last few years.
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 14:00
Yeah, so I think that's kind of a, there's multiple pieces to that. So obviously we're trying to be super easy for the dealer to work with to make the application process as smooth as possible all the way from when they submit the application to when they finally have to submit the documents to us and then we
Johnnie Martinez 14:04
Yeah.
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 14:19
fund them with the loan, right? And make it easy for the consumer to do little things like, I mean, I think almost everybody now is doing DocuSign so that people don't have to sign actual paper in the dealership. So anything you can do to take some friction out is always really good. But I think one of the biggest things is recognizing
that most consumers today, I think the number is like more than 80% of consumers are actually educating themselves before they even get there. And so the way to approach the consumer and making sure that you're talking to them sort of on equal footing and assuming that they know some things about financing, and if you discover during the conversation that they don't,
adjusting the conversation so that you're meeting the consumer where they are in terms of needs. And you know, the other thing is we have an award-winning credit decision engine called Prism that lets us evaluate a consumer based on more than just a credit score.
You know, Synchrony has 100 million consumers that do business with Synchrony. And so we are able to look at a consumer much differently than many others are. And we use that to approve as many consumers as possible without taking more risk.
Johnnie Martinez 15:46
Okay, that makes sense. One last sort of topic question, then we'll kind of get into the wrap-up of it all. But as we're entering this peak season, we're still at the very beginning of it in May. What is 1 piece of advice that maybe you guys can get from the financing side of it as far as helping dealers maybe avoid
the most common mistake that they are encountering during this time are, you know, understanding what's the best thing to help them in the market as we are, you know, here at the start of the season.
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 16:15
I think it's really two things. One is don't wait too long to introduce financing. Don't be afraid to have that conversation early with the buyer. Putting that, sort of taking that off the table is something that the consumer should be worried about is something that I would say they should do sooner versus later.
because it puts the customer at ease and makes that experience that much soon, that much smoother. And then I just lost my train of thought on what the second one was, but maybe also just making sure that you're helping the customer.
You know, sometimes I think with this equipment, it's not the same as like buying a car. People, you know, they know, they've seen a car, they know what the car is, driving is pretty normal, right? But if they're a first-time buyer for an ATV, for example, actually having the consumer sit on the ATV,
really understand what it is they're purchasing so that when they leave, they're really happy with it and they come back to the dealership and that they're really focused on the fact that this isn't just a sale, it's a relationship and making sure that the customer really wants to come back to them for servicing.
to them for accessories and building that in that way and they approach it as a relationship.
Johnnie Martinez 17:41
Fantastic. No, that makes a ton of sense. And yeah, that's one of the things that has been maybe the most unique part of it about working on our auto team and our power sports team, and I even work on our equipment team is the relationship is an aspect in all three of those industries, but especially in the power sports sector, it is unique in how that relationship operates because
It is such an experience-driven industry versus a utility or a commercial-driven industry.
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 18:08
It really is, and I think the dealers that I see being the most successful are dealers that do things like give the customer a reason to come to the dealership that's not to buy something. Like a ride day, like you guys are going to, like you organize a day where you're going to go out and do an organized trail ride.
And it gives them a reason to build camaraderie with the dealership and to come without the pressure of a purchase, which makes them that much more comfortable with the dealership and a reason to come back.
Johnnie Martinez 18:43
Fantastic. All right. And then lastly, is there anything else you think readers of Auto Finance News and Power Sports Finance or listeners to this episode of the podcast should know about the state of the market or what Synchrony is doing to support the power sports industry?
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 18:57
You know, we're super committed to the industry. I personally is getting to lead this business, love the fact that we're helping so many small businesses in the US. You know, most of the power sports dealers are family owned. I mean, we do have some, you know, bigger organizations that own multiple dealerships.
But for the most part, these are people who built their dealerships from the ground up and they have their kids working there. And I love that aspect of this because it's also, frankly, getting kids off their screens and outside. And so the more people that we can get to enjoy this
and become an enthusiast, I say that maybe they'll be on their phones a little less or they're at least doing maybe a TikTok video of them writing versus something else.
Johnnie Martinez 19:52
Fantastic. No, that makes all the sense in the world. And yet we see the industry adapting to that on a pretty much daily basis as far as finding ways to get to the new writers, the younger writers, and get them out there. So that makes a ton of sense. And yeah, hopefully the industry keeps going and it keeps giving us more stuff to talk about.
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 20:09
It's actually one of my favorite things to do. You know, we participate with some junior, like the KTM juniors. It's really fun to see young kids become enthusiasts and it's a lot of fun.
Johnnie Martinez 20:17
Mm.
Fantastic. Well, I thank you so much for your time today and to chat with you about what Synchrony is doing and really the overall power sports market.
Medrano, Susan (Synchrony) 20:31
Thank you.
Johnnie Martinez stopped transcription