The heavy-duty aftermarket is married to tradition, but that doesn’t necessarily mean staid and stale. Truck Pride, one of the major heavy-duty marketing groups, works to help its members retain tried and true best practices while keeping a close eye on the future.
“We want to make our guys healthy,” said Mark Willis, sales manager, Truck Pride, a division of Independent Warehouse Distributors, LLC (IWD). “We teach them how to compete against the OE using the tools we give them.”
And IWD knows about competition. Founded in 1985, they are two-decade-old survivors in an aggressive market.
Comprised of two divisions-Truck Pride for heavy-duty truck parts distributors and Auto Pride for automotive parts distributors-IWD has more than 180 members representing 800-plus locations. The two divisions are run jointly, benefiting members of each through shared ideas and solutions, as well as leveraged purchasing power through more than 120 national brand vendors.
Truck Pride also offers a self-branded product line to help members achieve the finessed look and feel of a franchise while maintaining their independent identities and management styles.
Member Marketing
About a decade ago, Truck Pride took a significant step forward by evolving from a buying group to a marketing group with the introduction of a comprehensive marketing program, helping its members promote their services to end users and grow their businesses.
“That’s our broad brush approach,” said Willis. “Our goal is to keep the independent repair shop competitive on a level playing field with the OE.” Truck Pride hopes that by bolstering the independent, it can do its part to keep the aftermarket robust.
One crucial way Truck Pride supports its members is by aiding its members’ customers. In 2001, the organization launched the Truck Service Experts program to help independent garages and repair shops gain market leverage.
OE dealerships and large chain stores typically share resources to uniformly promote their brand and market their products and services within their respective retail territories. Independents, however, often struggle to differentiate themselves from their competition. It’s hard enough to maintain internal organization, such as keeping staff trained and parts stocked, without worrying about an external image and prospecting for new business.
Truck Pride’s Truck Service Experts program provides turnkey marketing programs and materials, easing the investment of time and money. It’s based on a similar blueprint developed for the company’s sister Auto Pride network. It extends Truck Pride branding to customers through both parts and service locations. Distributors work with their preferred installers to use Truck Pride resources for joint marketing and advertising.
After members and installers become comfortable with the system and with their new relationship, additional materials and programs are rolled out. Throughout the year, Truck Pride sends out “hot packs” to its participants, containing everything from technical literature to banners, as well as promotional items from manufacturers. Distributors can add their own materials to the kit, helping promote their individual business identity.
And it’s not just any company that Truck Pride will put its name behind through the Truck Service Experts program. “We’re looking for the best in the marketplace,” said Willis. “We’re providing a high level of service, so we’re looking to represent the person who’s going to provide the highest quality service and install only the highest quality replacement parts.”
Truck Service Experts program members are held to an exacting code of ethics, Willis said, “so that we feel comfortable promoting them to fleets across the country. If you have a fleet, we want to be able to tell you that if you have a breakdown, we are your safety net that stretches across North America.”
That mission extends through Truck Pride’s Fleet Service Experts program. Bridging another aftermarket gap, this program uses the organization’s existing member network to target fleet customers with a viable, competitive alternative to a dealer’s parts and service offerings. “The fleet is an aftermarket customer,” said Willis, “so he should receive information and service from the aftermarket.”
Another area where Truck Pride helps its members compete is through technology acquisition, consultation and training. Often, independent shops don’t have financial clout to push through the technological curtain. Truck Pride leverages its sizable head count to purchase technology at a discount.
“We’re looking at the future and that’s technology,” Willis said. “OEs constantly are being provided with technological and training support.” The relationship between distributor and Truck Service Experts goes beyond customer and parts supplier by helping bridge the technological gap, Willis said. “We become more of a business consultant or partner to that person.”
At the same time, Truck Pride knows what parts of the past to retain. As an organization, it understands that people come to aftermarket providers because the aftermarket is a loyal, relationship-oriented marketplace. By incorporating vectors of technology and team collaboration, Truck Pride proves that at its best, traditionalism is dynamic and versatile.
What’s Next For Truck Pride?
Organization’s must keep a watchful eye on the future to ensure their members have the best advantage going forward. Truck Pride holds regular meetings to address members’ concerns and to begin brainstorming solutions. Two of the concerns the organization routinely hears are, “How can I bring more business to my bays?” and “How do I find the technicians to do the work?”
To address the first concern, Truck Pride worked with an outside product. “We’ve aligned all of our Truck Service Experts with what we believe to be the largest and most powerful locator network service available through the Internet and print,” said Mark Willis, Truck Pride sales manager. “We list every one of our Truck Service Experts on that site and it’s proven to drive business to these people.”
Increased business means members need even more qualified, certified technicians. In response, Truck Pride plans to recruit technicians for its members, Willis said. “We will provide a web site that is like a placement service or an online want ad. It will be password protected so that only members have access.”
Such forward-looking solutions to longstanding industry problems are an example of why marketing groups such as Truck Pride are so effective: Many heads are better than one.
