What a forward deployed engineer does inside a dealership

A forward deployed engineer (FDE) is an engineer who works inside the client’s operation instead of from a distance. In a dealership, that means sitting with the sales manager, reading the lead log and shipping code the same week. Palantir made the model known in enterprise software. We apply it to dealerships and importers, because we own dealerships ourselves and know where the money leaks. This is what the first two months look like.

Week 1: read the numbers before touching the CRM

The first job is a picture of the money. How many leads came in last month, from which source, how many got a reply the same day, how many turned into a test drive, and what margin each sold unit left after trade-in, reconditioning, financing commission and discount. Most owners can answer the first question from memory. Almost nobody can answer the last one before the month closes.

The FDE pulls the data from wherever it lives: the CRM, the DMS, the marketplace inbox, the spreadsheet the used car manager keeps on a laptop. Nothing gets built yet. The output is a one-page map of where leads come from and where they die.

Week 2: sit with the people who sell

A pipeline on paper and a pipeline on the floor are two different things. The FDE spends days next to salespeople, watching how a Marketplace lead reaches a phone, who answers WhatsApp at 9 pm, how a trade-in gets appraised and who approves a discount.

This is also where incentives show up. If commission pays per unit and nobody gets credit for follow-up, follow-up will not happen, whatever the CRM says. A system that ignores how people get paid will be installed and then ignored. We write the incentive map down next to the process map, and we review both with the owner before building.

Weeks 3 and 4: lead routing

The first thing we usually ship is routing. Every lead gets one owner, assigned by a rule the team agreed on: by brand, by source, by load or by an even weekly split. At AR Autos, a luxury SUV importer and used car dealer in Medellin, the Lead Router splits the pool of cold leads evenly across sales reps every week. Nobody hoards the pool and no lead sits without an owner.

• One owner per lead, visible in the CRM.
• A time limit for the first reply, with an alert when it passes.
• A reassignment rule for when the owner does not act.
• A report the sales manager reads every Monday.

Weeks 3 to 6: WhatsApp inside the CRM

In Mexico and Colombia the sale happens on WhatsApp. When the chats live on personal phones, the dealership loses the history the day a salesperson leaves, along with the customers in it. The FDE connects the numbers to the CRM so every conversation lands on the contact and the deal, with a next step and a date.

An AI agent can take the first minutes of each conversation: answer questions about stock, ask the qualifying questions, book the visit. Then it hands the lead to a person with the context written down. Closing stays human. The value is that the lead that writes at 11 pm gets an answer before your competitor wakes up.

Weeks 5 to 8: the DMS and the margin

The DMS holds the truth about units, costs and invoices. The CRM holds the truth about leads and conversations. Until the two talk, nobody sees margin per unit until month close. The FDE builds the connection, usually with n8n workflows, so a closed deal carries its real cost: purchase price, reconditioning, trade-in allowance, financing commission and discount.

With that in place, the owner can see which sources and which salespeople bring profitable units. Volume is only half the story; a salesperson who closes fewer units at a better margin may be worth more than the top seller by count.

Automate by the 5th

Our first mantra: when a task repeats for the fifth time, it gets automated. In a dealership that list fills fast. Publishing each car to marketplaces and social media, splitting leads, chasing documents for financing, building the Monday report. At AR Autos the Listing Publisher turns a car’s folder into a listing on MercadoLibre and Instagram. The FDE stays until the team uses the system without asking. AR Autos doubled its profits in one year.

Signs your dealership needs one

• Leads arrive on more than one phone.
• You learn the margin per unit when the month closes.
• Used stock and trade-ins live in a spreadsheet.
• The CRM was installed and nobody updates it.

If two of these are true, start with week one: the numbers. That is what our diagnosis covers, in your own data, before we propose anything.