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.
