Episode 321: In this week’s episode we start by talking about 3 common ideas in heavy-duty parts that need to be challenged. First, how total cost of operation should be considered over purchase price. Second, how salespeople are not usually able to both capture new business and nurture existing business; these take separate skill sets and different personality traits. Third, how experience in automotive does not always prepare you for working in heavy-duty.
Our guest interview is with Colin Dilley, the Vice President of Technology at Prestone who we caught up with at HDA Truck Pride’s Annual Meeting. Colin discusses the challenges of making new coolants compatible with changing truck technology, including electric trucks and 3D printed parts. He also gives some tips of what to look for in a long-lasting coolant that will protect your trucks, especially in the summer heat.
Heavy Duty Consulting Corporation: Find out how many “fault codes” your heavy-duty parts business has. Meet with us today. Visit HeavyDutyConsulting.com
Hengst Filtration: There's a new premium filter option for fleets. If you're responsible for a fleet, you won't believe how much using Hengst filters will save you. But you've got to go to HeavyDutyPartsReport.com/Hengst to find out how much.
Diesel Laptops: Diesel Laptops is so much more than just a provider of diagnostic tools. They’re your shop efficiency solution company. Learn more about everything Diesel Laptops can do for you today by visiting DieselLaptops.com today.
HDA Truck Pride: They’re the heart of the independent parts and service channel. They have 750 parts stores and 450 service centers conveniently located across the US and Canada. Visit HeavyDutyPartsReport.com/HDATruckPride today to find a location near you.
Disclaimer: This content and description may contain affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, The Heavy Duty Parts Report may receive a commission.
Sign up for our weekly email so you never miss out on an episode: Follow the Show
Episode 321: In this week’s episode we start by talking about 3 common ideas in heavy-duty parts that need to be challenged. First, how total cost of operation should be considered over purchase price. Second, how salespeople are not usually able to both capture new business and nurture existing business; these take separate skill sets and different personality traits. Third, how experience in automotive does not always prepare you for working in heavy-duty.
Our guest interview is with Colin Dilley, the Vice President of Technology at Prestone who we caught up with at HDA Truck Pride’s Annual Meeting. Colin discusses the challenges of making new coolants compatible with changing truck technology, including electric trucks and 3D printed parts. He also gives some tips of what to look for in a long-lasting coolant that will protect your trucks, especially in the summer heat.
Heavy Duty Consulting Corporation: Find out how many “fault codes” your heavy-duty parts business has. Meet with us today. Visit HeavyDutyConsulting.com
Hengst Filtration: There's a new premium filter option for fleets. If you're responsible for a fleet, you won't believe how much using Hengst filters will save you. But you've got to go to HeavyDutyPartsReport.com/Hengst to find out how much.
Diesel Laptops: Diesel Laptops is so much more than just a provider of diagnostic tools. They’re your shop efficiency solution company. Learn more about everything Diesel Laptops can do for you today by visiting DieselLaptops.com today.
HDA Truck Pride: They’re the heart of the independent parts and service channel. They have 750 parts stores and 450 service centers conveniently located across the US and Canada. Visit HeavyDutyPartsReport.com/HDATruckPride today to find a location near you.
Disclaimer: This content and description may contain affiliate links, which means that if you click on one of the product links, The Heavy Duty Parts Report may receive a commission.
Sign up for our weekly email so you never miss out on an episode: Follow the Show
Jamie Irvine:
You're listening to the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. I'm your host, jamie Irvin, and this is the place where we have conversations that empower heavy-duty people. I'd like to take a moment to express my sincere appreciation to the entire team at HDA Trek Pride. We were so happy to be able to attend this year's annual meeting in Grapevine, texas, and we were so welcomed at the show. It was great to meet with HDA Truck Pride members, with the staff from head office and also with suppliers.
Jamie Irvine:
Over the last couple weeks, we've been doing interviews from that show, and today we are going to do our final interview from the HDA Truck Pride annual meeting. So I hope that you've enjoyed them and again, just a big special thank you to HDA Truck Pride. So what are we going to talk about in this week's episode? Well, in this week's episode, we are going to talk about three common ideas that heavy duty parts businesses need to really challenge to be successful. We're going to review what you need to know about coolant for the upcoming summer, as well as something that you need to really challenge when you're thinking about coolant, and we're going to talk about the importance of not just looking at the symptom but finding the root cause of your problem. This applies both to commercial trucks and trailers, just like it applies to working in a heavy-duty parts business. All right, let's get started. So, first of all, I want to talk to you about three of the common things that we come across when we're consulting with heavy-duty parts companies that we really think should be challenged, and I want to talk about these three ideas that I think you need to really take a good hard look at, because for a long time, we may have done things a certain way, but right now we need to look at doing things differently. We need to challenge that status quo. What three things am I talking about? Well, to start with, this is a subject we've talked about on this show many times purchase price, the total cost of a given part. It really is the thing that you should be looking at last Now. Obviously, purchase price has to be in line with competitive standards. You don't want to be overpaying when you don't need to, but you also don't want to be sacrificing quality and putting yourself into a position where you're going to have additional downtime, which is going to create all kinds of extra costs that immediately evaporate any cost savings that you might've achieved buying a cheaper part. So that's something we've got to stop that. And so, anybody listening, especially if you're selling parts, you've got to work with your customers to overcome that proclivity to look at the purchase price. Okay, next thing I wanted to talk about when you are selling heavy-duty parts.
Jamie Irvine:
When I talk to sales managers who are looking to recruit salespeople, the first question I ask them is what does the role entail? Is this primarily new business development or is the salesperson going to be nurturing existing relationships? Almost without fail, the sales managers reply with well, it's going to be a little bit of both. This is a problem. We see this play out with our clients many times and it never works out.
Jamie Irvine:
The reality is, if you are in a position where you have to build a lot of new business with new customers that you have no existing relationship with, there is a certain personality profile that is really really good at doing that. They are highly assertive, sociable, they have high pace and they're not that detail-oriented. They are driven for results. Those people are not usually particularly good at nurturing relationships. They're good at creating relationships and then handing them off to people that are, on the other side of the coin, very good at nurturing relationships. There is room for both kinds of salespeople, but to have those personality traits to do both jobs extremely well is almost impossible to find in one human being. So what we recommend is you have to pair certain salespeople with other salespeople in order to take care of the customer's needs. Now this is a problem for a lot of companies because they look at it like well, I'm just going to have to pay extra labor, extra salary then, and I don't have budget for that. At the end of the day, it is costing you far more not to organize your sales team around specific roles where you can get salespeople where they're naturally best and that they will perform an extremely high level. People who nurture relationships usually have higher levels of sociability than assertiveness. That doesn't mean they lack the ability to ask for the business. It just means that these types of people, unlike the people who are good at new business development, the people who are good at nurturing relationships, put everything through a relationship lens, and your customers love these types of people. These salespeople that are good at nurturing relationships usually struggle to find a level of assertiveness needed to create a lot of net new business. So we got to change the way we think about how we organize our sales teams. If you're having that problem, come talk to us at the Heavy-Duty Consulting Corporation, because we have a solution for you.
Jamie Irvine:
Okay, the last thing I wanted to talk about is this idea that if you have automotive experience, you automatically are going to be able to move into the heavy-duty parts business. That just isn't true. How many times have we seen people think that that automotive experience, that we know how to sell parts, we know how to sell automotive parts. We've done this very successfully, and that means that we're going to be able to just walk right into the commercial truck business and we're going to be able to sell parts there as well. And that isn't necessarily always true. Why? There's a big difference between the automotive world, where a lot of these vehicles are made in high volume, where parts data is readily available, versus a heavy duty parts business where everything is spec, even from the original manufacturer, where you have to have a lot of knowledge about how to identify parts. You can't just go in and expect to get all of the data needed to be successful and it's just not available, and so you have to build up that parts knowledge, and so that's just one area where you get into trouble when you think that you can apply an automotive mindset to a heavy-duty business. And of course, there are many, many more. So these are some of the ideas. So when you've heard me in the past and when you hear me in the future talk about challenging the status quo, these are the kinds of things that I see over and over and over again that I really think we need to, as an industry, kind of push back on and say, no, there is a better way to do these things. Okay, so now we're going to take a quick break and when we get back from the break we're going to talk about the old ideas that persist around coolant and what you need to know to get ready for this summer. We'll be right back.
Jamie Irvine:
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Jamie Irvine:
DutyPartsReportcom slash H-E-N-G-S-T Head there now At Diesel Laptops. They go way beyond diagnostic tools. They are your complete shop efficiency partner, from diesel technician training to complete repair information, parts lookup tools and robust technical support. They are there to support you every step of the way. Learn more and download your free starter pack today by visiting DieselLaptopscom. That's DieselLaptopscom.
Jamie Irvine:
We're back from our break and, before we introduce our featured guests, I just wanted to mention that we are looking for forward-thinking parts distributors who would like to join a special beta program exclusively for the listeners of the Heavy-Duty Parts Report. If you want to provide your customers with unparalleled parts visibility and reduce the number of phone calls your counter has to field every single day, then I want you to go to heavydutypartsreportcom. Forward slash, jamie. That's heavydutypartsreportcom. Forward slash, jamie. This will take you to my calendar. You can book a meeting with me and talk about what it will take to get enrolled in this very special, exclusive beta program. If you want to push the limits of what we can do, if you want to challenge the status quo of the way a heavy-duty parts business operates, then you've got to join this program. Okay, so, as I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, while I was attending HDA Truck Pride's annual meeting in Grapevine, texas, back in April, I got the chance to sit down with some members, with some of their corporate head office staff as well as a supplier, and that supplier is our featured guest today. So listen in to my interview with Colin Dilley from Prestone, and in this interview we discuss coolant and some old ideas that need to be challenged and what you need to know to prepare for summer.
Jamie Irvine:
We're in Grapevine, texas, at HDA Truck Pride's annual meeting for 2024. Hda Truck Pride brings together over 140 members of heavy-duty parts and service companies. They have over 700 parts locations across the US and Canada, as well as now over 500 repair shops. This is a great event that I look forward to each and every year because it gives us the opportunity to talk about very specific things and help these independent business owners to advance their business.
Jamie Irvine:
And today I am very happy to have Colin Dilley back on the Heavy Duty Parts Report. Glad to have you here. Good to be back. Yeah, so Colin is the Vice President of Technology at Presto and if you've listened to a couple of the interviews that we've done with him in the past, we'll include some links in the show notes for those.
Jamie Irvine:
I'm always impressed with his level of knowledge of his specific product category. And so, colin, I wanted to talk to you because when we come together at these shows, it gives us this great opportunity to impart knowledge to the people who are on the front lines, people who are dealing with the fleets, the owner operators, the repair shops, and you know, the knowledge that we can impart is really valuable because it helps them to make their customers more successful, and the trucking industry has to succeed. That is so important. So, as a supplier to an HDA Truck Pride group, what would you say the biggest benefit the members get when they come to one of these shows? And you and your other counterparts are here to impart that knowledge? What's the benefit that they get.
Colin Dilley:
Really the benefit comes from the knowledge to make the best decisions on what to do with their enhanced buying power that they get through being members. So we're there to help them understand what's going on in the industry, what's going to come in the future to their industry and what their customers can most benefit from. We want to make those suppliers the experts, so when their customers come to them, they can give them their knowledge and appear to be the experts. We're there to back them up.
Jamie Irvine:
Right and you kind of bring up a good point, because there's the product side, which is very important, but there's also that business development side where you need to be able to present and educate the end users, like if you're in the parts and service side of the business. To your point, there's so much change in the industry and like, how do you adapt to that change and you make a poor decision and it could have major implications to a fleet that could really cost them a lot that's very, very true.
Colin Dilley:
We work with ford, gm, toyota, cummins all the big guys. So we we are working with their engineers on a daily, weekly basis to see what's coming, so we're able to talk to people when they come to the booth or in our one-on-ones and explain what the future is, how our coolants and our thermal management fluids are going to meet the needs that are coming up, how they're backward compatible. We're really making them an expert so they can go to their customers and say, no, you don't need this, you need this, it's going to help you, it's going to help your business. That knowledge, this, you need this, it's going to help you, it's going to help your business. That knowledge is going to equal profit.
Jamie Irvine:
It's going to equal knowledge. It's going to equal a better business and a better service to their customers. So let's talk a little bit about what is coming in the future, so give us some insight into, uh, what we should expect uh, so it's a great time for that question.
Colin Dilley:
if you look at the news, you're seeing electric vehicles and fuel cell vehicles. They're everywhere and we're working with the light duty, medium duty and we're working with Cummins right now, in fact, we're just one of the first to receive the Cummins new electric vehicle certification on our new fluids. They're also looking at fuel cells and that's a whole different story. We're looking at low-conductive fluids. We just hired a team last year, seven PhD scientists, so we now have a team of 30 in our R&D team looking at thermal management fluids, antifreeze coolants, across the full range of vehicles that are using them. So we're letting our members here know what's coming in the future.
Jamie Irvine:
ev may or may not come in the future but, it's certainly making a big dent in what everybody's working on right now right and I I see, not only are the vehicles themselves becoming more complex uh, the ice vehicles but then when you look to a future where you might have two or three different types of power for vehicles, if you're selling parts, if you're providing service, you're going to have to be an expert across all of these. How important is it going to be? I think I guess maybe, when I look at it, I actually see it's going to become even more important to be a member of this group if you're an independent business owner, because how are you possibly going to keep up and be an expert on all of?
Colin Dilley:
that that is such a good point? Because you can't. You have to be looking 10, 15 years into the future. Engines today have things like 3D printed parts in them. Right, Old coolants no longer work with those parts. They're not compatible. You have to be looking to the future and when you're making future fluids, you have to make sure that those fluids are always, say reverse, compatible with everything that's gone behind them, so we're able to tell them what to use, what's changing, what's the best way to go forward and somewhat cut through the BS of this color, that color and those things that are confusing to the customer.
Jamie Irvine:
Right, and some of those old ideas that still exist right, because of the complexity of trucks today. What would you say is the way that someone should go through, kind of helping a fleet make a coolant decision Like how has that changed, maybe from 15, 20 years ago? How has that changed, maybe from 15, 20 years ago?
Colin Dilley:
The big change is a very simple thing it's the hose clamp on the hose. 15 years ago the leakage in the cooling systems was so much a gallon or two a month, right so everyone would be topping up, topping up. When you're topping up, you're putting in new inhibitors preventing corrosion. They fixed the hose clamps that were coming loose in the vibration. Now they're not re-topping up so much. So suddenly those coolants that were there lasting 100,000 miles are going to go 100,000 miles plus in the vehicle. They're going to become neglected. They're going to lose their power to protect the engine against corrosion, especially cavitation corrosion. We're trying to help people understand they have to go to the new technology the oat technology, the phosphate in oat technology, the core guard technology, all those technologies that can eliminate corrosion for up to a million miles.
Jamie Irvine:
Oh, okay, okay, so that topping up that we used to do actually kept the coolant at a higher level.
Colin Dilley:
Yes, it kept the coolant. Good, it kept the coolant with enough inhibitors so the cooling system wouldn't corrode.
Jamie Irvine:
Right, so we fixed one problem, but then we created another problem. Okay, when it comes to like like, when I'm thinking about how to approach a fleet, I always want and I encourage anyone who's in parts and service to always approach it from the concept of like. How do we lower their total cost of operation, not focusing on the purchase price on the products as much as focusing on how does that product perform? So how do you support these members and help them to communicate that message?
Colin Dilley:
So every member I've spoken to in our one-on-one so far I've offered that if you have a customer that comes in he's not sure what he has, he's not sure how good the coolant is, what age it is, send it to us at our Prestone Technology Center in Danbury, Connecticut. We'll analyze that and let them know what it is. There's a problem in the industry that people come in and say I've got red coolant, I want red coolant to go back in it. There are so many different red coolants, I want yellow coolant, I want yellow coolant. They've got to understand some of the coolant technologies and we're helping them understand that and take some of the confusion away. Color is not important. The type of coolant is important. The type of coolant.
Jamie Irvine:
And are you seeing that there is a need to also match the type of coolant to the vocation?
Colin Dilley:
Yes, explain more. It depends on what you're off-road, on-road what kind of equipment that you're using. We want to make sure that people stay with the approved coolants so that they never end up in a situation where they may lose their warranty coverage. Right Warranties are becoming an issue. We're seeing more and more warranties being voided because the wrong coolant is being used. That's why we go out and we get the Cummins certifications, the Detroit Diesel certifications. We're always working on those.
Colin Dilley:
So if your equipment is calling for a nitrite-free organic acid technology, make sure you've got a nitrite-free organic technology. Detroit Diesel has been very adamant. Don't use nitrites. And it's not because the nitrate coolant is bad, it's because the nitrate coolant when that nitrogen nitrate is gone, soon as it goes, it starts corroding on the wet sleeve liners. Okay. So you've got to understand it. When you've got a long-haul truck going and it's on the road for a week at a time, if you've hit that point you've got a long haul truck going and it's on the road for a week at a time if you've hit that point, you've got a nitrided coolant and it loses it, you're going to suddenly get massive corrosion in the wet sleeve liners. Right, and so follow your maintenance schedules. Whatever you're using, follow your maintenance schedules Right.
Jamie Irvine:
So summer is right around the corner. Things are going to heat up. What should we be talking to our customers about as we approach the summertime?
Colin Dilley:
Summer is when problems really start to show, and we call it antifreeze coolant. Everybody's worried about it freezing, but really heat is the enemy of the engine. Right, and two things you've got to make sure that are correct. One, the dilution of the coolant. You want that 50-50 even mix to get a full range of anti-boil protection. And you have to make sure that you are topped up. Topping up is incredibly important in the summer. If you don't, what you end up is air pockets in the cooling system. Where you have an air pocket in the cooling system, you've obviously got no protection to that part and that's where corrosion can start. So top off and make sure your concentrate is exactly what it should be 50-50.
Jamie Irvine:
Okay, so we've talked about a number of things. What's one thing you want people to remember from our conversation today?
Colin Dilley:
I would say. The one thing is, as you mentioned, how many people there are. I think there's just under 700 people walking around this exposition, which means there's 700 experts here. Talk, compare. Don't just go with the person you know. Talk to other people around. I encourage people to talk to all the callers providers, get the information, understand what's going on, see the pros and cons, listen to everybody. We're very confident in our technology. We're very confident in what press stone can offer, so we're not scared to say hey, talk to our competitors and do that for everything you might be buying. It doesn't matter if it's oil parts, whatever it is. Get as much knowledge as you can and, as I said, that knowledge is going to make your enhanced buying power worth something you've been listening to the heavy duty parts report.
Jamie Irvine:
I'm your host, jamie irvin, and we've been speaking with Colin Dilley, the Vice President of Technology at Prestone. If you'd like to learn more about their products, go to prestonecom. Links are in the show notes and, colin, when we're at these shows, I know how busy it is, so thank you so much for taking the time it was my pleasure.
Jamie Irvine:
Thanks, Jamie. It was great to talk to Colin Dilley again and have him back on the show. Colin is a wealth of knowledge and he is always so enjoyable to talk to, so I hope you took something from his interview. It's time for that's Not Heavy Duty In this week's segment. What I want to talk about is that it's not heavy duty to assume that the symptom is the problem. That it's not heavy duty to assume that the symptom is the problem. Listen in to Renegade Racing. Talk about the mistake a lot of people make when coolant is pressurizing the system.
Colin Dilley:
All right. So we're going to try and diagnose what's going on with it. Number one all right, which everybody thinks. When you've got something going like that coolant pressurizing the system, you're thinking A it's pushing combustion pressure in there, etc. Thinks, whenever you got something going like that coolant pressurizing the system, you're thinkinga it's pushing combustion pressure in there, etc. That's not necessarily the truth. All right, um, nine times out of ten that isn't the truth.
Colin Dilley:
All right, first thing we want to check is the air compressor, all right. So, um, all bigger trucks, semis and stuff like that, they have a gear driven air compressor on them and it runs coolant through it to cool the compressor. When the head blows on these things sometimes the head on the air compressor it'll start pumping air into the cooling jacket. All right, so the first thing that we're going to do is we're going to bypass the air compressor, and how we're going to do that is this is a coolant line right here and this is a coolant line right here and this is a coolant line right here. So we're going to take both these lines off and put a splicer in it and run it in together. So it's just pushing the coolant right back through the system.
Jamie Irvine:
Now, that's just a little clip of the entire video. If you want to watch the entire video, go over to heavydutypartsreportcom, go to the show notes of this episode, and in the show notes we've got a link to the entire video. So I'd like to know and I'd like to hear from you Do you agree with the way that he diagnosed this problem? You can let us know by commenting on the posts that we put up on LinkedIn or YouTube, and you can always reach out to us by going to heavydutypartsreportcom. We'd love to hear from you. So, whether or not you agree with Renegade Racing and the way that he diagnosed this specific problem. I think you will agree with me that he's going down the right road by not looking at the symptom and really doing a root cause analysis and trying to figure out what is actually causing this problem. Whether you're fixing a commercial truck or trailer or you're working in a heavy duty parts business, figuring out what the root causes of the problems are is the heavy duty way. It's the only way to permanently solve problems and it's the only way to maximize your overall performance and results. I actually kind of think this also has an application in life. How many times have. We experienced a problem personally and you know we work at it, we work at it and we don't seem to ever be able to solve it. Well, that's because we might be working at the wrong thing. So the heavy duty way is to stop, take the time to figure out what's actually causing the problem and then fix that to the best of our ability. That is being heavy duty.
Jamie Irvine:
Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. I really appreciate your ongoing support of the Heavy-Duty Parts Report and if you haven't already, why don't you go over to our website, heavydutypartsreportcom? Hit that follow button and sign up to our weekly email. We send out one email a week so you never miss out on our content. We don't spam you with anything else, just that one weekly email. And if you like listening to the podcast on your podcast player of choice, hit the follow button for free If it gives you the option. A five-star rating and a great review from you I've heard will help us with reach. In addition to that, if you watch the video version on YouTube, make sure you hit the subscribe button so that you don't miss out on our content. Once again, thank you so much for listening to our show and we really appreciate your ongoing support. As always, I want to encourage you to be heavy duty. We'll talk to you soon.