Dealership insights
Desking Technology at Edge Performance Sports: A 2019 Sales Manager Case Study
In 2019, Edge Performance Sports sales manager Rob Palomarez named three things that helped him run the desk. What he said, and a checklist for your store.
Quick answer
In 2019, Rob Palomarez, sales manager at Edge Performance Sports in Ontario, Oregon, credited three things for helping him run the desk: a strong staff, better information and communication across departments, and the desking tool in PSX's CXMAi platform. Here is what he said, what he reported, and a checklist any sales manager can use.
In November 2019, PSX published two short interviews with Rob Palomarez, then sales manager at Edge Performance Sports in Ontario, Oregon. This one is about his job: what helped him run the desk day to day. The companion piece, how Edge Performance Sports handled powersports desking challenges, covers the deals themselves, such as a customer buying two units and a trailer at once.
What follows is dated history. The quotes are Rob's, word for word, as PSX published them in 2019. The results are what the dealership reported at the time, not a promise for any other store.
The dealership and the sales manager in 2019
Edge Performance Sports is a powersports dealership in Ontario, Oregon. PSX's published stories describe its rise to the number-one Polaris dealership in the Northwest, and its then-president, Ryan Gentry, credited PSX's platform in a separate trade-press feature. You can read that side of the story on our Edge Performance Sports customer story page and in why Edge Performance Sports focused on vendor relationships.
Rob came to powersports from the auto business. In 2019 he led Edge's sales team, and the store was one of the more progressive users of PSX's CXMAi platform.
What a powersports sales manager juggles at the desk
A sales manager wears many hats. One of the biggest is keeping the deal moving between the salesperson on the floor, the finance office, the lender and the other departments that touch a sale, such as parts for accessories and service for setup.
Every one of those handoffs is a place where a deal can stall. The customer waits, the numbers change, someone re-keys a figure wrong, or a question goes unanswered. So when PSX asked Rob what helps him do his job every day, his answer was less about software than you might expect.
The three things Rob credited
He named "at least two (but really three)" things. Here they are side by side, with a question each one raises for your own store.
| What Rob named | What he said in 2019 | Question for your store |
|---|---|---|
| Great staff | Quality people who "work hard, take direction well" and keep improving | Do we hire and keep people who want to get better, and do we coach them? |
| Information and communication | Data moves "from the consumer to management and to the financial institution" | How many times is the same customer detail typed between the floor and the lender? |
| Desking technology | A desking tool that helps him "do my job more efficiently every day" | Can a manager build, change and present a deal without leaving the customer waiting? |
1. Great staff
Rob put people first:
"The quality of staff is key to any winning dealership. Here at Edge Performance Sports, we foster an excellent culture that attracts the kind of driven and quality people it takes to be successful in today's market."
"I've got to give it up to those guys. They work hard, they take direction well, and they're always looking to improve."
It is a useful order of priorities. A desk tool speeds up a good team. It does not fix a team that skips steps or leaves poor notes.
2. Information and communication
His second point was the quality of information and how it moves:
"PSXDigital's platform has allowed us to communicate on just a whole new level. And not just in our sales department, but really company-wide. It affects every area and department of our dealership. It allows us to transfer data, necessary information, from the consumer to management and to the financial institution, reducing the amount of time it takes to purchase a unit and to increase the enjoyability for the customer."
Note the path he describes: consumer, then management, then the lender. That path is the whole deal, and he credited shared data across it for a faster purchase and a better time for the customer.
3. Desking technology
Only third did he name the desking tool itself:
"I would also say that just having very innovative and industry leading Powersports Desking Technology helps me do my job more efficiently every day. The capabilities that we have with PSXDigital is similar to the software I had seen in the auto industry, but not nearly as robust or enhanced."
He summed up the platform this way:
"The CXMAi platform is something that has not only taken our store to a new level of efficiency and success, but Powersports as a whole. I feel like it's going to continue to change the industry. It is an amazing system to have."
What Edge reported, and what it did not
Dealer-reported (2019): shared information across departments reduced the time it took a customer to purchase a unit and made buying more enjoyable for the customer.
That is the whole result. Rob gave no figures for minutes saved, close rates or gross, and we have not added any. Read his account as one sales manager's experience of what made his job easier, not as a benchmark.
The handoff most desking stories skip
Most desking articles, ours included, focus on speed: build the deal fast, present it clearly, get the customer to finance. Rob's own words point to something the top results rarely cover. He was moving customer data, including credit details, "to the financial institution". Fast is only good if that data is also accurate and protected at each handoff.
Two things are worth checking:
- Accuracy. Every time a figure is typed again, it can change. One customer record that the floor, the desk and finance all work from removes a whole class of errors, such as a payoff that differs between the worksheet and the credit application.
- Protection. The FTC's Safeguards Rule requires covered financial institutions to keep a written information security program, with a Qualified Individual to run it, a written risk assessment, access controls, encryption, multi-factor authentication and oversight of service providers (16 CFR 314.4). The FTC says that what matters is the activities your business undertakes, not how you categorize your company. If your store arranges or offers financing, ask your counsel whether the rule applies and what it means for the systems your deal data passes through. This is general information, not legal advice.
So a sales manager reviewing the desk should ask two questions, not one: how fast does the deal move, and how many hands and screens does the customer's information pass through on the way?
A sales manager's checklist from the Edge story
Use this to test your own desk against the three things Rob named:
- People: each salesperson knows the desk process and follows it without being chased.
- Coaching: a manager reviews stalled deals and adds advice, rather than only signing off.
- Notes: every deal that does not close has notes on what was offered and why the customer paused.
- One record: the customer's details, trade and payoff are entered once and used by sales, desk and finance.
- Lender handoff: the credit application is filled from the deal, not retyped from paper.
- Changes: a manager can rework price, down payment or term while the customer is still at the table.
- Waiting time: you know roughly how long a customer sits alone between the test ride and the numbers.
- Security: you know who can see credit data, where it is stored and which vendors handle it.
If most boxes are unticked, start with the record and the process. Our guide to the desking process from write-up to F&I walks through each stage, and what should flow where in an integrated desking platform covers the data handoffs in more detail.
What has changed since 2019
In 2019 the company went by PSXDigital. Today it is PSX Ascend, and its live pages say the PSX Ascend platform brings customer intelligence, inventory, websites and marketing into one shared view. The live product pages describe:
- an AI-powered powersports CRM that connects customer data, sales workflows and lead follow-up;
- AMP, its marketing automation platform, with ALMA, the Automated Lead Management Assistant, for lead engagement;
- connected dealership websites and AI inventory management.
The current product pages do not describe a desking tool, so this article does not claim that the 2019 desking features are offered today. If desking matters to your store, ask PSX directly what is available now. To compare tools on your own terms, use our buyer's checklist for powersports desking software.
You can also see the same AI-powered powersports CRM on our sister site, PSXDigital's AI-powered powersports CRM page.
Sources
- Federal Trade Commission, FTC Safeguards Rule: What Your Business Needs to Know
- eCFR, 16 CFR 314.4, Elements of an information security program
- eCFR, 16 CFR 314.2, Definitions