What you'll accomplish
You'll use Claude to analyze your historical deal data and identify which lenders give you the most reserve flexibility for which customer profiles — turning informal hunches ("I always get better rates from Ally on prime credit") into data-backed submission strategy. This helps you optimize reserve income without violating rate mark-up limits.
What you'll need
How-To Guide: Build a Lender Rate Negotiation Analysis with Claude
Before Claude can analyze your lender performance, you need to get your data into a readable format. Create a simple table in any text editor, Google Sheets, or even on paper. You need 6 columns:
Deal# | Lender | FICO Range | Term (months) | Finance Amount | Reserve Earned ($)
001 | Ally | 700-749 | 72 | $28,000 | $840
002 | Cap One | 640-679 | 84 | $22,000 | $550
You don't need exact FICO scores — ranges are fine (640-679, 680-719, 720-759, 760+). You also don't need perfect data — estimate reserve if you have to.
What you should see: A 20-30 row table covering your recent deals. Troubleshooting: If you can't pull this from your DMS, rough estimates from memory for the last 20 deals will still show patterns.