The Right Way to Cold Call a Fleet or a Garage

There is a lot available on and offline about cold calling. Some promote scripts others one-liners, still more tips and tricks to jedi-mind people into buying from you. Some, maybe all, may be true, at least at times. That said every customer is a little different and every industry is a bit different. The following is a surefire way to cold call a transportation fleet or a heavy road vehicle garage.

The first thing you want to do is learn a little about the company. Just do a quick Google or Bing search to make sure there isn’t some very easy to learn information available. While on the one hand you don’t want to go in blind (not such a big deal), you definitely don’t want your first question to be the one thing they make excruciatingly clear on their website of LinkedIn page. Once you’ve done a quick once-over on the company your ready to go in.

Whether you know who the person responsible is or not put a warm smile on your face, and ask for the person responsible for the fleet (if it’s a fleet), or the person responsible for parts (if it’s a fleets garage, or an open to public garage). If the person your asking makes any reference whatsoever to the fact that the person may not be available or that you don’t have an appointment, then be very quick in clarifying that it’s true you don’t have an appointment, and you’re not looking to take up someone’s time right here and now. You are ONLY looking for a name and contact information.

In the worst case, they won’t know. Should that happen ask who would know or how you could find out. Just know this is a red flag. If they do know, or they are that person (or claim to be), ask if they have a quick (and this better be true) moment to discuss your company. If no, ask for an appointment, or ask how to make an appointment. If yes, be ready to explain in one or two sentences what your biggest advantages are.

Let’s say either the prospect is willing to give you 5-10 minutes or you’ve made an appointment and now have 5-10 minutes. Even if they were to say they had an hour to give you, you still want to be concise. Even if the customer is a personal friend of yours you don’t want to waste their working hours nor your selling hours, which are limited. You want to start with the simplest points of interest for your customer in a way that differentiates you.

If you happen to have good knowledge in wheel end issues or HVAC or whatever system you can help with, you want to let them know here. Look around the yard and the shop and use this to guide your conversation. If you see a transmission jack with an inch of dust on it, you don’t need to be Sherlock Holmes to know that you probably aren’t selling them clutches any time soon. It doesn’t mean you can’t, but you probably shouldn’t lead with it.

This is also a time to sell yourself as someone knowledgeable about the industry. Every truck in the yard is Kenworth or Peterbilt, ask how they feel about Paccar. Only Volvo VNL’s? ask them if they hate the engine being “backwards” for North American truck configurations. They have more than one pit and each has a hydraulic jack, how much front-end work do they do? Isn’t it great for the mechanics?

Whatever your personal or organizational strengths are you want to get 2-3 main points across and repeat them until you can’t anymore. Not repeating word for word but keep giving examples of types of products you source well and customers you’ve helped in different situations. Focus on at most 3 points because they will be taking in way too much information to remember more than that. And keep in mind that the prospect is not just deciding whether or not to deal with your company, but if they want to deal with you. Since you’ll call on them anywhere from twice a week to once a month you really want to get the message across that you know what you’re doing and what you’re doing is helping them run their operations.

It's great to have some killer prices in a promotion but it’s way more important the customer knows that your job is to help them in their jobs.