FleetPride - The DL S3E23

FleetPride - The DL S3E23 is now available on Apple Podcasts, SoundCloud, IGTV, and YouTube. 

In this episode of The DL, Diesel Laptops’ Founder and CEO, Tyler Robertson, is joined by Cory Anderson – General Manager & Vice President of Service at FleetPride.

Please like, subscribe, and share. If you have questions or would like to learn more about a particular topic, drop a comment and let us know. 

As always, thank you for watching and listening!

Connect with Cory Anderson & FleetPride:

LinkedIn – https://www.linkedin.com/company/fleetpride

Website – https://fleetpride.com/
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCsiTQupxIlFLT-8e6wZALpg

Transcript for FleetPride - The DL S3E23:

Tyler Robertson: 

Welcome to the DL. This is the podcast show where we talk about everything going on in the heavy  truck and equipment industry. So one of the things that we're really passionate about here at Diesel  Laptops is training technicians. We have plenty of people that buy these expensive kits, they open it up  and once they figure out how to use the software, we quickly realize they really are struggling how to  properly diagnose things. The vehicles got complicated, all kinds of new technologies entering our space.  And we have a company here that is going to talk today to the audience about what they're doing. And  they have a much bigger scale than I think a lot of our audience does, but they really understand the  importance of it. So with that, I'm going to invite and like to introduce Cory who's the GM and vice  president of service of FleetPride. So Cory, welcome to the DL podcast, man. 

Cory Anderson: 

It's great to be here, Tyler. 

Tyler Robertson: 

So let's just set the stage a little bit for everyone on FleetPride because I was a parts counter guy, 10, 15  years ago, FleetPride had parts stores and distribution. And now we're talking about diesel technicians  and training. So if you could walk us through a little bit, I that would appreciate it. 

Cory Anderson: 

You bet. Appreciate the time to be here by the way, to this, that we're really excited to be on this  podcast with you, Tyler. But talking about FleetPride, the traditional FleetPride has been a business of  parts. You go back in the legacy of FleetPride, it's a roll up of parts, parts organizations and quickly over  the last few years, we've become a service organization, but some of the really neat things going on  from FleetPride's perspective, growth drivers, you've got what we've been doing in acquisitions over the  last couple of years and the the rapid expansion we're seeing with that. The distribution centers, we've  made some tremendous investments on the distribution side, not only expanding our talent, but  expanding our opportunities and our options where we used to be able to only fulfill directly fr from a  branch. 

But now we've got, with our new digital e-com tool we're fulfilling direct from the DC. We're  working hard with our supplier partnerships to really engage with them or with our key partners for, you  think of all the different data and all the things that we need to be able to offer a best in class solution  from an econ perspective. So Stibo, IBM, Salesforce, all those types of key tools where we're leveraging  with our key suppliers, so that we can give that customer that best in class tool. 

And you think about how does this relate to technicians? Well, today, the technicians when you  come to a FleetPride shop, we work on anything and everything. We're not tied to one brand, one make,  we're medium duty, we're heavy duty, we're all makes, but we've got to have a better, we've got to give  our technicians and our counter people, a better tool to be able to define that part quicker and all of  those related repair components that go with that. And so really excited about what we've been doing,  over 300 locations now from a FleetPride perspective. And we'll talk as we get into this, we'll talk more  about the service side, but it's really been an exciting time to be part of FleetPride. 

Tyler Robertson: 

So I can say that I had the privilege of actually getting a tour of one of your distribution centers, your  DCs. I mean, that triple mezzanine section that I saw in there, where you put the part in and it goes down and someone ends up packing it, just super impressive stuff. So that was really one of the first, I  don't know of any, I mean, I've seen that before at OEMs, because that's where I worked at. I was just  thoroughly impressed and understood once I saw it, where you guys were going, just monstrous  facilities, full of truck parts. So great things that are happening there. And then Cory, can you explain  your role inside FleetPride and some of your experience, a little bit for the audience as well? 

Cory Anderson: 

So, absolutely. I'm the general manager, vice president over service for FleetPride. Going back my  experience is my career. I began my career in the construction agricultural business and then moved  into trucking about a dozen years ago. And I spent my last three years at FleetPride. Prior to my current  role where I'm running service. I was running the central part of the United States from basically  Minnesota to New Mexico, in all those retail locations in that area. But beginning of this year, we stood  up a new business unit, the service business unit, where we've got the responsibility for now over 70  service locations. And so we began at the beginning of this year and that's what I've been doing. 

Tyler Robertson: 

So I worked at an OEM dealership and I was a service manager of one branch and we had five branches.  And that was a tough thing to get your hands around, just getting five branches. And you guys are  obviously growing fast. I feel like I see a press release about every week, it feels like from you guys  acquiring someone new. So how's it been going on? This is a whole, a new thing and service isn't easy at  the end of the day. 

Cory Anderson: 

It's really been an exciting time for us at FleetPride as we've moved into this growth lever. So our CEO,  that's been with us about two years, Mike Duffy, really helped us find this new gear and really move into  this acquisition mode. And so there's a tremendous amount of opportunity on the service side of the  business, where there's a bunch of owners out there that don't have succession planning. So you  mentioned yourself, you've been in a dealer with one location up to five locations. And so there's not a  lot of succession in the aftermarket space from a service perspective. So it's really allowed us the  opportunity to go in there and provide career advancement opportunities for these owners, employees  that they're at the end of their career. And they don't have somewhere to move that's, we've created  this really tremendous opportunity to allow their employees to continue to be employed and grow with  us. 

Tyler Robertson: 

Yeah. I mean, from afar, we see the headlines and we see things going great. So it's been great to see, I  think our, I look at our industry and I guess let's talk about the technicians here for a little bit. So I look at  it and I think in my perception, there's a huge diesel technician shortage. As of right now, there's over  80,000 job opens on Indeed alone. And our tech schools produce about 10,000. So we get this huge gap  in there. And not only that, but as I say at the top of this, trucks got more complicated, we got robots  driving trucks soon, we got EVs coming, after treatment systems, more and more computers and all  these things. So it appears to me, one of the things that I've seen online is that FleetPride says, "Hey,  we're going to go invest in our diesel technicians and provide training to them." So I'm curious to hear  from your viewpoint of how important is that to an organization to provide continuing education to  these diesel techs?

Cory Anderson: 

Yeah, absolutely. When we stood the service business unit, it was one of the main key pillars of this new  service business unit was making a tremendous investment in the technicians. we've got the FleetPride  Tech University, it's a newer group for us. They began the beginning of this year. But we recognized very  quickly that in order to allow the technicians to have the opportunity to grow with us, we needed to do  

this. And so we're developing training from that entry level technician all the way up to those that  become certified master technicians. And like I mentioned a little bit ago, we work on all makes, all  models. And so we can't just focus on one power train or one make, we've got to really be an expert in  all of those. And so this created a great opportunity for us to dig in and figure out. 

Tyler Robertson: 

Yeah, so a very similar thing here. I mean, I worked at a dealership and again, I was a service manager, I  was a parts manager and I did other things there, but I was always like, "Man, we have access to all the  resources. We have access to the OEM software. We got access to the factory. We got access to repair  information, to factory training." And then you have this whole world of aftermarket who doesn't have  

any of that. And where we've struggled on the aftermarket side with the training, it's going to these  shops and being like, "Hey, you need to go invest the time and money into sending your technicians to  these classes." And we usually hear one of a couple things. The main objection we get is, "Well, we're so  busy, I can't afford to have a guy gone for three days or four days to go do these trainings." So I guess  what I'd like to hear from you is you're obviously sending technicians, you have online training, you have  classroom training. What's the response you're getting from the technicians once they go through that  for the first time? 

Cory Anderson: 

Man, I would tell you, Tyler, it's been a breath of fresh air when they get to the classes, they're excited  to be there to know that they're being invested in and for them, it's a, like we said before, it's a career  growth, career expansion opportunity for them because as they develop and gain more skills, they can  do more complex repairs. But it also impacts their way of living because as they learn more, they are  

worth more as a technician. And so we progress their pay as we move through that. So a little bit of a  learning curve with our service managers. That you think of all the legacy businesses that we've rolled  up through acquisition. And like you're saying, "Hey man, I can't afford to have my technician out this  week." 

And we've quickly helped them recognize they can't afford not to have them out to get trained  and prepared because as these trucks continue to advance technologically, we've got to be ready and  prepared to be able to fix those. And so we recognize this was one of the most important things as we  put together the service BU was making sure that we really invested in the technician piece of this. 

And so, but it's funny that as we meet with acquisition candidates, I would say there's two or  three key things that they bring up, on almost every single one of them succession of course, but a big  one is the resources and availability of training for their people and how excited they are, that with their  team joining FleetPride, we're now going to afford their employees the opportunity to develop and  enhance their skills. And so that's something that has come up so much in the last six months as we've  sat down with these potential candidates and the acquisitions that we've made. Training is part of every  one of those where the owners are just really excited that you can do something I was not able to do as  a single store outlet. 

Tyler Robertson:

 So inside FleetPride, did you put together an entire program or path for the employees, where you  integrate all these different pieces of it? Or is it just like, "Okay, this store, you got to send three people  this week." Or how did you go about organizing that inside a bigger organization? 

Cory Anderson: 

It's a great question. And like I said, we're new. So this organization began at the beginning of this year.  Of course we've been, we working towards this a lot longer than that and supporting it. But as we  started to build this out, we recognized that there's a... We've got three levels of technicians, we've got  a tech one, tech two, tech three, and so there's a whole skillset path of how do you go from a one to a  two and a two to a three? So it'd be like, you're apprentice all the way up to your master technician. And  so there's training, there's a a technician assessment that you begin with. And then as we move along  their career path, there's ways they can graduate into those next levels, which like I said, of course  creates additional, that they're worth more in the market. And so there's monetary value for them to do  this, but we've got this entire career curriculum for them to move them up and potentially hopefully  want to move all the way to a master technician. 

Tyler Robertson: 

Yeah. And one of the things I... It's always about retention, we have this huge shortage. I think  everyone's always worried, like, "Oh, my technician's going to leave for 50 cents an hour more  somewhere else." I know retention on the Diesel Laptop side, when I look at it. And every time, we look  every month, who left the company and we always have two lists, we call them regrettable and non  regrettable. So the non regrettables, we're like, "Oh, okay. That's okay. They're gone." Regrettable,  we're like, "Man, I wish they wouldn't have left." And every time I look at that regrettable list, I either  pin it on one or two things like, hey, we had a conflict or a situation with their direct supervisor, or  they're a great employee, their supervisor is great. We just didn't give them a clear career path to go  make more money and better themselves. So are you seeing training help on the retention side when it  comes to the diesel technicians? 

Cory Anderson: 

Absolutely. The experiences we've seen to this point with the technicians that have been on site they're  home, they're sharing it with their peers. They're talking about with their service manager, "Hey, what's  the next course for me? How can I develop this? I really need to become certified to repair Detroit  engine." And so they're taking a big focus or interest in what that next step for their career is. And so  yeah, from a retention perspective, we expect to see this continue to help us assist in one of the, and  there's many, many things behind retention, like you said, but the investment in them and the training is  a big lever to help with retention. 

Tyler Robertson: 

Yeah. Are you finding there's certain areas that your technicians are weaker or they want more training  in or what areas are you guys trying to focus everyone? Because there's a lot of componentry on today's  commercial trucks. 

Cory Anderson: 

Yeah. I mean, for us, like I said before, we work on all makes, all models. And so there's gaps in... There's  some medium duty opportunities, but I would say that the greatest areas of focus since they went to the  tier four emissions is anything emissions related is a huge area of opportunity. Plus the electronics on these trucks, you think of the number of computers it takes now to run one of these new vehicles. And  so electrical diagnostic, like I said, the emissions and then just your engine work. The engines are much  more advanced than they were. If you think back to a dozen years ago when Caterpillar was kicking an  

engine out, a technician today gets excited when one of those shows up because it's pretty easy to work  on a CAT engine and 15 years ago, there's no way that you would've said that but now with the new  technology. That's where we're seeing most of the need for the, or the gap that we've made the  investment in is engine emissions and then the electrical diagnostic pieces of it. 

Tyler Robertson: 

So when I was a parts manager and mainly a parts manager, I guess we had our vendors that we bought  parts from and say, "Hey, we'll do a training class thing for you guys." And they would come in and do  those things. I mean, I know FleetPride, I mean, you guys sell hundreds of millions or billions of dollars of  parts every year. Have the vendors, have you got some of those vendors to help with some of these  things? Or is it really just doing some other things outside from the traditional vendor training or  product training that they typically offer? 

Cory Anderson: 

Yeah. I mean, we absolutely leverage the vendors. We work very closely with them. It's still a work in  process as far as how to get their suite of courses into our technology. But we're heavily engaged with  our key vendors and definitely standing up some trainings there to make sure that, that content is  relevant and good for the development of the technician. But so we've got a whole vetting process of, is  this really going to be a value add for the technician? If not, we try to steer clear of those. 

Tyler Robertson: 

Yeah. So inside FleetPride, I guess, is a bigger company. I mean, we're talking about technician training.  Do you guys do other training for other staff members and departments like service writers and service  managers and parts counter people or is it mainly focused on the technician at this point? 

Cory Anderson: 

That's a great question, Tyler. So when we began the service business unit our initial focus was all about  technician and the investment in the technician, but we've got an entire training department here at  FleetPride that focuses on development of, like you said, the counter people, the managers, it's a big  piece of our new culture. I would say being driven by Mike Duffy, our new CEO. Well, not new, he's been  here a couple years, but it's a big piece being driven by Mike Duffy, is just to make sure that we're  investing in the people to make sure they've got the skills necessary to level up. 

Tyler Robertson: 

Yeah. I mean, I think when it comes to diesel techs, they all want to do more. And they all want that  opportunity and that path to make more money and do more things. So it's really refreshing to see you  at FleetPride coming along and saying, "Hey, we are going to go invest the money and do these things."  And like I said earlier, that's one of our biggest things, is people just saying, I can't do it. I can't free the  guys up. And I'm just trying to tell the audience out there, you have to do it. 

If you don't do it, you're going to lose the guys to people like FleetPride that are willing to make  those investments because it's always with the long term, not just what I have in the shop today. And  again, just really great to see everything that you guys have going on over there at FleetPride and the continued growth. And I got to ask, at the end of the day, you guys are buying up repair shops and, but  you guys will sell parts to some of your competitors. Any collisions happening there or so far, you guys  been able to work through all that stuff? 

Cory Anderson: 

Yeah. I honestly, I don't think so at all, it's such a, the repair space is such a large fragmented space. That  there's enough room for all of us to navigate and honestly do very well. And so some of our very best  customers on the parts side are shops down the street from our shops. And we've figured out how to  make it work. It's one of those things that oftentimes when we go into a market, there's enough work  for everybody to go around, not enough technicians to go around, but that's something we all dream of  being able to increase. But no, there haven't been big major conflicts in that piece of the business. 

Tyler Robertson: 

Yeah. I keep saying, "Hey, we got a shortage problem here." And there's really, I don't think it's one  solution, I get frustrated in our space because for 20 years I've heard people saying, "Well, we got to go  find more diesel techs. Let's go convince a bunch of high school kids to be diesel techs." I'm like, "Okay  guys, you going to train them for 20 years. It hasn't worked yet. It's only gotten worse." I keep saying, it's  really a combination of, yeah, we need to keep doing those things, but we also need to have technology  and we need to do more to make it more efficient. And that's really what you're doing at FleetPride, is  you're saying, man, I got a limited pool of technicians, but if I can get them to increase capacity by 10%,  15%, 20%, it ends up being the equivalent of hiring someone. So I'm assuming efficiency and  productivity are some of the measurement sticks that you guys are using with your diesel techs. 

Cory Anderson: 

Absolutely. And it all comes back to everything we try to do is all about trying to support the customer.  But for sure you think of the productivity, the efficiency. So, about two years ago before the service  business unit was stood up, we made the shift to Carmack and so all of our service centers are on  Carmack, which allowed us the opportunity to really dig in and have a best in class operation tool so that  we could understand the metrics and focus on that. And then you think about us as a business, we're  pretty dang good at parts. We've got 300 locations, but we were asking our operations team in the field  that was really good at parts, to try to figure out this service thing at the same time. 

And so, as we naturally progressed, we started with Carmack. And then when we went to the  business unit, it allowed us to really start to begin to focus on those metrics. And those, get the right  leadership in the field that can focus on the key metrics to drive and grow service, to make us more  efficient, more productive. And all of this, like I said before is ultimately so that we could do a better job  supporting the customer so we can get the truck in and out of the shop quicker so they can get back on  the road. 

Tyler Robertson: 

Yeah. And for the audience, I just want to break this down just a little bit, because this is something I've  learned as my company grew from my garage to what we have today. Doing what you do, and I think  every small repair shop will understand this, just doing what you do, gets you to a level, and then they  tend to get stuck there. whether that level is a million year or 10 million year depends on your business  and all these things, but you tend to get stuck there. And what I hope the audience is picking up here is  FleetPride, yeah they're taking care of their customers and doing things, but what they're spending their  time on is strategy.

They're spending their time on operational systems. What software do we need? What pieces of  the puzzle do we need to be more efficient and do things for them? And diesel technician and training in  general is one of those things. So it's an important piece of any business. And I guess one of the last  questions I'd like to ask you, I've seen different acquisitions. You guys have done and pictures of tow  trucks and mobile trucks and these things, are those businesses FleetPrides also getting into, the mobile  and towing and ancillary stuff? Are you guys just saying, "Hey, we're an in shop and we're going to stick  to those." 

Cory Anderson: 

Great question. So we have about 120 mobile trucks today, and that's probably, I would say the fastest  growing segment in the market. And so that'll be a space that will continue to grow. I would say rapidly.  The wrecker space is brand new for us through, I'd say the last year and a half, four of our acquisitions  have wreckers. So we've got over 40 wreckers today, predominantly in the Northeast, Pennsylvania,  New York area. And so that's a business we're learning. It's an interesting business. There's things that  we've learned from a technology perspective that the wrecker, our most recent acquisition of TNR out  of New York, TNR truck, the way that they manage their 724 call center to take care of their customers.  It's amazing what we learned, looking at their technology that we can bleed over to other parts of our  business. 

And so did we ever plan to be in that piece of the business? I'd say probably not, but it's fun  because now we get to learn something different than we didn't haven't see is this scalable as well to  move into other markets. And so definitely we have wreckers and we're definitely in the mobile space  and that's going to be an area that we really grow. And another piece of the business that's a growing  piece for us is on site repair where we've got technicians that go on site to some major customers and  take over their shops and run those for them. So, there's all of those different segments have been great  opportunities. 

Tyler Robertson: 

Yeah. It sounds like a very similar situation over here. I never intended to get in the training business for  diesel techs, but we realized we had to help our guys be more successful so they can afford the tools  and do all those things. And once you go through it, like you just said, once you do one step, all of a  sudden three doors of opportunity open up and you get a bunch of these doors and again, for the  audience listening, that's a big piece of it is just taking a little bit of a risk, calculated risk. You end up  finding you go a different direction than you really intended to start with. So Cory, I just want to say  thank you very much for coming on here. If people want to connect with you or learn more about  FleetPride, I'm sure you guys are always looking for diesel technicians as well. Where's the best place for  them to go do that? 

Cory Anderson: 

So, we're on all the major recruiting sites, but for technicians fleetpride.com is where everything's  posted. But pop by check out one of our service centers and I would love to hear your feedback on how  we're doing. And more importantly, Tyler really appreciate the time today to spend with you. 

Tyler Robertson: 

Hey man, I love talking about things in shop environment, brings me back to my service manager days.  So I think I could sit here for hours and pick your brain about things. So great to see all the success  you're having over at FleetPride and for the audience watching and listening, we're going to wrap this one up, but as we always say, it's not just diagnostics, it's diagnostics done right. And you got to invest in  your employees, you got to invest in the training to do that. So thank you for watching, listening. Like, comment, share, subscribe, all those things we do on the social media platforms tremendously help us.  We'll catch you on the next episode.