Every week, First Business Bank's floorplan financing team processes hundreds of vehicle titles for independent dealers across the country and Amanda Heider built the systems and team that handle every one of them.
As Loan Operations Manager – Floorplan Financing at First Business Bank, Heider leads the team responsible for the daily mechanics behind every dealer relationship the bank holds. Many dealers know her by name and even more feel her work in the moments they never see, like when a title arrives on schedule, someone picks up on the first ring, or a payoff clears without a hitch.
Where The Universe Led Her
Heider grew up in Avon, Indiana, a small town at the time that has since grown into one of Indianapolis's busier suburbs. From childhood, she wanted to work with animals and set her sights on becoming a veterinarian. That interest led to her first job at PetSmart, where she started part time and worked her way through several promotions, including her favorite role, Pet Care Manager. When she decided she wanted to keep advancing within the company, she enrolled at Ivy Tech Community College to study business administration.
The move into floorplan financing came through a coworker. Her store manager at PetSmart left for NextGear Capital, a large floorplan financing company based in Carmel, Indiana. Heider followed him not long after, trading retail for floorplanning.
"It's funny how the universe has its own idea of what you're supposed to do in this world," she said.
Heider now has more than a decade of experience in the floorplan industry. Looking back at her career, she sums it up simply.
"I like this field, and I'm good at it," she said. Heider said she was drawn to First Business Bank after NextGear because of its scale. The floorplan team works with far fewer dealers, which leaves room for personalized relationships that larger competitors can't match, including direct phone lines, first-name recognition, and prompt follow-through that dealers notice and appreciate. It suits her as a self-described people-pleaser and problem solver, and it's the environment she'd spend the next several years building from the ground up.
From Running It Solo To Leading A Team
When Heider joined First Business Bank, the floorplan operations team was taking shape. Within her first months, she found herself running the entire operation solo for a short time, handling every title, every call, and every floorplan requestwhile she built the team around her. It gave her a rare vantage point as a manager. There isn't a task on her team's plate she hasn't done firsthand, and that shapes how she trains and supports the people who report to her.
Today, Heider leads a small, tightly run team responsible for every title and every dollar moving through the bank's floorplan portfolio.
She runs the team on monthly one-on-ones and structured 30/60/90-day plans for new hires, but she's quick to point out she doesn't have it all figured out.
"I'm human, and I'm not going to get it right 100% of the time," she said. "But I will absolutely own that and do whatever I need to do to be better for my team."
That mindset shows up in how she talks about the role itself. She calls herself an empathetic leader first, someone who tries to be the best version of herself for the people who carry the daily weight of the division. She credits mentors along the way, including Angie Jennings, whom she meets with regularly, and Specialty Finance President Niamh Kristufek, for shaping how she leads.
Saving Hours By Leading Innovation
Before Heider's team built a better system, incoming vehicle titles, the collateral behind every floorplan loan, moved through the office almost entirely by hand. The team receives over 500 titles a week. Staff had to type in the last six digits of every VIN, manually update its status, and staple a paper note listing the dealer's name and invoice number to each physical title before filing them.
Heider had already seen a better way to do it. Earlier in her career she worked with a title imaging system. She brought that experience to First Business Bank and worked with technology partner, Vero Technologies, to build what the team now calls the Title Imaging Platform.
The system works around batches. Each one corresponds to a single FedEx package of titles, with individual separator sheets marking where one document ends and the next begins. Once scanned, the platform extracts and sorts each title by VIN, then routes it to a barcoded folder built for that vehicle title. From there, the system updates automatically, marking the title received, logging its folder location, and recording the tracking number it arrived under, all without a staff member touching a keyboard.
Dealers benefit from the same system on the other end. They can pull up a title image through the portal whenever they need it to fund a deal with a lien holder, show proof to their customer, or complete title work of their own. When a dealer pays off a loan and it's time to release the title, the platform generates the FedEx label and cost automatically, replacing what used to require three separate processes with one.
"This title system upgrade was long overdue," Heider said. "It saves us hours every single day, loads of hours every week, and it's way more efficient."
The platform also closed a gap between First Business Bank and larger floorplan competitors. It's part of the infrastructure that lets a five-person team support the bank's entire floorplan portfolio.
Answering On The First Ring
Heider says most independent dealers who work with First Business Bank point to accessibility as the biggest differentiator. One phone number rings to the entire office, with no call queue, no hold music, and no routing through a menu, which results in prompt, expert service on the first ring.
That accessibility extends into how the team builds relationships. Heider and her staff know most dealers by first name, and the dealers know them the same way. They call to say happy birthday. They remember details most companies wouldn't bother tracking. It's a level of familiarity that Heider says larger floorplan companies can't replicate, and it's intentional. The team isn't chasing every dealership in the market. It's building relationships with the ones that fit and backing that up with follow-through dealers can count on.
"We say what we do, and we do what we say," Heider said.
That consistency shows the Floorplan Financing team’s high net promoter scores (NPS), and it's paired with rigorous internal controls. The team follows strict verification steps and double-checks on every transaction, since the office moves millions of dollars a day and a single mistake could put a dealer or auction partner relationship at risk. Heider has consolidated those procedures into a shared document the whole team can reference, so the same standard applies no matter who picks up the phone.
"Our dealers know that they can trust us," she said.
Miles, Magic, And A Little Bit Of Pi
Summed up in three words, Heider describes life today as, “Mom, work, run. However, that undersells it. She logs at least 20 miles a week and has completed three half marathons. At home, she's the mom doing backflips at the trampoline park and taking her daughter on bike rides and walks around the neighborhood, a freer version of the same childhood she remembers having in Avon.
She's also a self-described Disney adult — Sleeping Beauty and Stitch are her favorite characters. This year, she and her fiancé are taking her daughter to Disney World for her birthday, continuing a family tradition that goes back to Heider's grandparents, who made the trip more than 30 times over the years.
Asked what people might find surprising about her, Heider casually drops that she has the first 75 digits of pi memorized.
"That shows I'm good with numbers, I guess," she said.
How She Measures A Good Day
Heider says a good day serving independent car dealers means keeping things simple and efficient, including titles processed on time, phones answered promptly, and vehicle purchases floored cleared without missing a beat. It's a responsibility she takes personally.
"We're in the business of helping our dealers be successful in their businesses, and we take that seriously," she said.
That same care runs through the team she's built and trained herself, and through her plans for what comes next.
"We continue to grow our business and bring on new dealers," she said. “We are not trying to be the biggest floorplan provider out there, but we want to be the one dealers know they can always count on.”
Update date: 9/30/2026
