I sat with a colleague’s father over a gas station coffee not long ago. He’s a retired man who did well in our industry. He spoke soft and slow, as many of us do when our days lose the fullness of meetings, agendas, and deliveries, which normally devour our attention and time. But as the conversation blazed beyond the surface chat, I began witnessing a rousing flame in him be stoked by the inferno of truck talk.
We laughed, thinking back on the days when he resisted using computers. We talked about how one of his largest office expenses was once disposable polaroids that he bought, shot, developed, and overnighted to a potential buyer to give them a look at his supply. In one instance, he had a large group of trucks that demanded so much attention that he took out a full-page ad in Truck Paper.
Imagine my surprise when he then, with pride, showed me the article. His eyes sparkled and his soul danced as stories of losses and gains, achievements and pains erupted from his newly ignited demeanor. In his heart, he was still chasing that next deal.
It was amazing to meet the man who sold the owner of my company his first truck. Like a schoolboy proud of his new shoes, he showed me my owner’s cell number, proceeded to call him, and got an answer on the first ring. It is humbling when you meet someone who has more trophies and recognition as a top producer for their OEM than you have years in the business.
It’s humbling even further when you realize that if you just doubled their production, you’ll have sold the same amount of equipment in only 10 or 20 years. Sadly, the very generation that built the companies we work for is likely a decade or less away from retiring. Before they pour their last cup of free corporate coffee, we have work to do!
To say it plainly, the gap between the sales strategy and mentality of the new generation and the veterans of the used truck industry is too big. The new generation hates tasks like photographing trucks. Veterans have newspaper clipping ads from 20 years ago they are still proud of to this day. New generations are overly focused on capital, whereas veterans simply talk to their friends and fall into truck deals.
The new generation is a liability moving trucks on the yard and veterans have CDLs and moonlight hauling grain for their farmer friends in small towns. The new generation can’t read a spec sheet, whereas veterans laugh at the mistakes fleets make when they spec’d a truck a certain way. The new generation is afraid a customer will see a used truck's wart, and veterans will tell their buyer about the cigarette burn in the seat, the heel mark on the floor, and the overspray in the door jam.
But there’s a flip side to that coin, too. I’ve seen a veteran struggle with operating a wireless laptop mouse for fifteen minutes. In that same time, I’ve seen a newbie send 16,000 emails canvasing a hot deal to every mc/dot in a metropolitan area. Basically, what I’m saying is that our industry needs to bridge the gap.
In a relay race, the objective is to be the fastest. However, if you took the four fastest racers on the planet and put them on a relay team, that team would lose every race if they weren’t taught how to pass the baton. Right now, we have a situation where one runner is ending their work while another is eager to begin. This handoff must be timed gracefully, and perfectly so that the baton is passed in stride and without any slowing of pace and speed.
This requires the new racer to count steps and evaluate every move of the previous racer. It also requires the current racer to hold pace so the next racer can match stride. The inertia and the complete life and story of the past that gets transferred with the baton in those steps.
Christmas cards are nice to receive, knowing birthdays are important, and making sure deals are sealed with a bottle of Blanton’s is a game changer. You should be showing up unannounced with your customers’ favorite cookies. You should be sending their controllers flowers or chocolates. Your emails may seldom get read but handwritten letters get tucked in small boxes where they may live forever. Know ahead of time that if you ask about family, you could risk sending a man with a degenerate son into a depression, but that you’ll lighten his entire afternoon when you ask about his hunting dog or favorite granddaughter.
These are the talents that our veterans carry. They can hear the difference between an engine tick and a loose bumper rattle. They genuinely love the gear as much as they love the action. They conduct business with friends because they invest in friendship. They believe that the definition of a salesman is a “problem solver” and they know that people don’t ask for help from strangers.
In December of 2022, Forbes published an article that cautioned, “getting a new customer can cost five to seven times as much as retaining an old one.” All the flashy new talent and technology that the new generation brings to the table will be costly if our veterans don’t teach them how to care about the product, how to take pride in their work, and how to create partnerships, not just transactions.
Our industry can now touch a million people in a near instant, but if we can’t convert a handshake to a hug, then our customer retention will suffer wildly, and we’ll martyr our product value to best price. Businesses may have survived on transactions, but they were built on love.
