Claudia Olea is visiting a small LTL outfit in the sprawling suburbs of Los Angeles. She tells the prospect about her dealership, TEC La Mirada, and her product, the Mack Pinnacle. She shares a testimonial about another trucking firm in the community that has purchased several Mack models and provides the company’s phone number.

All in a day’s work for any sales rep with a Mack dealership. Only in this case Olea speaks to the prospect in her native Spanish. She’s also using her deep knowledge of Latino culture to forge bonds and build relationships with her prospects.

“If I have a fleet that buys Macks I put them in the truck and do the walk-around in Spanish,” says the daughter of immigrants from Mexico. “They feel that instant connection with Mack. With the Hispanic community, trust is a huge sales pitch. If a customer trusts you he’ll refer other customers to you.”

It’s a scene that’s repeated across North America in dozens of languages every day. It’s also a new way of doing business that reaches customers not traditionally served by the trucking industry.

That’s a large and growing audience. The U.S. Bureau of Labor statistics says of the more than 3 million drivers and related workers in 2010, 17.5 percent were Hispanic and 1.5 percent were Asian. The percentages are even greater at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, about

25 miles from TEC La Mirada. Some 96 percent of the truck drivers there are Latino, a survey by research firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner shows.

Olea, who started leasing trucks at TEC La Mirada in 2000 and graduated to new-truck sales, can verify those figures. Half of the dealership’s customers are Hispanic, 80 percent for her customer base.

“If a fleet bought 55 Macks, the owner would speak English and Spanish.

However the majority of his drivers speak Spanish and usually they bring the truck in for service or parts.”

To reach this audience TEC La Mirada and its sister dealership in nearby Fontana have hired nearly a dozen sales reps who speak a number of languages. One rep hires a translator when dealing with his Korean customers. Visitors to the websites of all TEC Equipment dealerships can view the sites in Spanish with the click of a button.

“We are hiring more sales people who do speak Spanish,” Olea says. “That will grow the market share for Mack here.”

Value the RelationshipAs one of two major ports of entry

into Canada, Toronto has become the melting pot of the country. In the years after World War II Germans, Ukrainians and Poles emigrated from Europe to what is now a growing city with more than 5 million people in the Greater Toronto Area. Later Italians and Portuguese arrived. The 1980s saw an influx of Indians from the Punjab region.

As with the dealerships in California, dealers here find the key to success lies in building relationships, and they hire accordingly.

“My grandparents came after the First World War,” says John Rosinski, a sales rep at Performance Equipment Ltd. in Mississauga, Ontario, part of the Slotegraaf Group of companies. “I went to Poland to explore my roots after university and studied Polish at Jagiellonian University in Krakow. I started working for Mack in 1979. After the rise of the Solidarity movement many Poles immigrated to Canada and started driving trucks. I could translate into their own language all of the ins and outs of buying a truck.”

Performance Equipment has a multi-lingual workforce. Two speak Polish and one speaks Urdu, the national language of Pakistan that is used in parts of India. The sales manager is attempting to hire a rep who speaks Punjabi.

Mack Trucks Canada runs ads in several ethnic magazines, such as the bilingual Polish publication Truck ‘n’ Roll and the Indian monthly Road Today. Rosinski and other sales reps sponsor Indian truck shows and “spend Saturday and Sunday kicking tires.”

The real work comes after the sale. “It’s all about the relationship between the customer and our service counter,” Rosinski says. “We introduce them to the key staff they’ll be dealing with. If they’re on their way back to Toronto we encourage them to call ahead for a booking. In some cases they’ll call me and ask if I’ll make an appointment for them. It shows that we value their business and want to help them to make money in trucking.”

Try a Little Tenderness

In the rough-and-tumble world of the trucking industry you don’t often hear about sensitivity as a sales tool. But Graham Prohaska, a sales rep with Durham Truck & Equipment of Ajax, Ontario, says cultural awareness is often more valuable than linguistic skills.

“We’re sensitive to their needs,” he says of the Asians, Indians, Hispanics and Eastern Europeans who populate the greater Toronto area. “We try to be sensitive to their culture. With Asians we never use the number four. We stock a wider color spectrum that appeals to many cultures. It’s difficult for many of them to speak on the phone so I try to meet with everyone in person. You can show them things, write things down. You can read

an expression or tone even if you can’t fully understand the language.”

Prohaska is even sensitive about the meeting place, especially with prospective customers from the Punjab. “We meet them at different places and at different hours. It’s not like being called by a construction company that wants you to come to their office. They may want to meet at a Tim Hortons [a Canadian casual restaurant known for its coffee and doughnuts]. That’s where they’re comfortable.”

Investing in the FutureBack at La Mirada Claudia Olea

is conducting an orientation for owner-operators about replacing older diesel engines with new power plants that meet emissions requirements. All of the owners speak Spanish. “I have six guys who think they’re going to repower their units so their trucks won’t be banned by the Port of Los Angeles. I have to sell them on the idea that they’re not going to have any long-term issues if they buy a new truck. I tell them once you drive a Mack you’ll never go back. You’re going to keep it forever.”

That’s something people of any culture can understand.

For Dealers, Many Cultures Mean More Sales

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D E A L E R F O C U S

Claudia Olea of TEC La Mirada points out features of the Mack ® Pinnacle™ to Mack Western Region VP John Thomas during a recent sales competition.

John Rosinski, left, of Performance Equipment Ltd. describes the benefits of the Mack SCR system to Joe Melo of Rumble Foundations, who emigrated from Portugal to Canada.

“ ”D E A L E R F O C U S

It’s all about the relationship between

the customer and our service counter

– John Rosinskisales rep at Performance Equipment Ltd.