Changing Fleet Leadership Demographics Yield Opportunities for Suppliers

Fleet manager demographics are changing, and successful industry suppliers are adjusting.  However, identifying those new decisionmakers and what motivates them can be a difficult process, according to a panel of fleet sales experts at the Suppliers Track education session, Fleet Talk: What Suppliers Need to Know About Fleet Demographics, at the NAFA’s 2019 Institute & Expo.

Today’s fleet managers generally come from various backgrounds with specialized degrees, noted David Hayward, a member of NAFA’s Board of Directors as well as Manager at Deloitte. “There are fewer long-time, specialized “fleet managers,” Hayward said, “and fleet may be just one of their responsibilities. Knowledge transfer from retiring fleet managers is a complicated challenge.”

“To manage this, you have to pull a lot of people together,” said NAFA Associate Member Susan Miller, Senior Fleet Account Manager at Geotab. “You have to establish relationships across the board,” such as with procurement, product lines, and more. Once you work with these other professionals, they’ll likely see one of the greatest obstacles – cost – isn’t the only factor, she added.

“You’ll be the change agents for a lot of people” as an industry vendor, Miller noted.  “That requires relationships across an organization and not with just the fleet day-to-day contact.”

Fleet vendors should play a greater role than simply being sales conduits for fleet executives. NAFA Associate Member Heidi DiAngelo, Global Account Manager for Geotab, suggested bringing in benchmarking studies, setting up discovery sessions to get information, and being a collaborator – as so much of what fleet suppliers should be doing is consultative. “You need to be a partner for them,” she noted.

Miller agreed and said when she was a fleet manager with McDonalds, those vendors that got through her door “really did the homework on us.” She advised suppliers to understand all the factors that go into their clients’ businesses and the pace they like to work.

When assessing fleet needs, Hayward advises that once an organization has over 1,000 vehicles it typically requires its own fleet department, even if it’s a department of one.

DeAngelo identified a general approach for vendors to use when assessing the needs of their fleet prospects:

• Fleets of one to 100 vehicles may benefit most from packaged deals that are made easy to implement
• Approach fleets of 101 to 499 vehicles as being the neediest and most complex, where your solutions should address their desire for more intensive fleet management
• Fleets with 500-plus vehicles are where the desire for better technology lies, deeper discounts can be expected, and there may be an international presence to contend with

When getting a fleet to move up into a new product or even to hire a fleet management company or other service providers, Hayward said suppliers must show how they’re giving their clients more time to let them better execute their core business. “For me, as a fleet manager, I want my suppliers to sell me a value proposition that includes how I can do the rest of my job better, not just the function I’m hiring them for.”

Miller thinks fleet sales success boils down to demonstrating the potentially improved total cost of ownership, as this is where your data and documentation supports change management. “Having that partner to (help) walk through these things is critical,” she added, and your third-party validation, examples of benchmarking, and other companies’ experiences are important for providing value.

(Note: A video of this session is available as part of NAFA’s Selling into Fleet instructional package. This six-video package is just $149, or $49 for individual session videos. Click here to learn more and order.)