I joined The Compliance Guys around six weeks ago with almost zero knowledge of the FCA and the motor trade but throughout this whirlwind period of annual returns, social media monitoring, firm detail checks and much, much more this has drastically changed.
The best thing I was told over this time and the one thing that keeps coming back to me, however, was something that was said to me within five minutes of arriving to the office on my first day – Car dealers just want to sell cars.
The simplistic nature of this is by design, in the motor trade the easier we can make the lives of the dealers we work with, the happier they will be. They don’t want to spend their days working through the maze of the FCA systems or reading up through the handbooks for financial promotion compliance, they just want to sell cars, and the more time we can give them to do this the better. So, although every email may as well start with ‘I know it’s a pain but…’ as we navigate the FCA systems and translate their jargon, the time and effort we do save dealers was obvious to me straight away.
I think the key to avoiding the big bad FCA coming after you is a proactive not reactive approach and with the constant pressure those in the motor trade are under this is extremely difficult so being given simplified, direct and genuine advice from The Compliance Guys and only being bothered when absolutely necessary I think is the greatest benefit we are able to provide. After all, car dealers just want to sell cars.
For me personally, the appreciation of knowing how much value you’ve added to their business and the genuine thanks you receive across the board from all dealers means the job satisfaction in this role is extremely high, especially compared to previous roles I’ve been in and I’m excited to gain expertise in areas I didn’t even know existed back in August.
I’m looking forward to learning more about the FCA and continuing to help and find new ways to add value to the businesses we work with in the future, seeing more of how they operate and what they need and catering our work to them. The variety of work is great, the fact there is still so much more to learn about the FCA is exciting and I can carry on letting car dealers just sell cars.