By John Wysseier, CEO and President, The CEI Group, Inc.

“The single biggest challenge of selling today is not selling, it is actually our customers’ struggle to buy.” – Brent Adamson, Distinguished VP, Advisory, Gartner

B2B sales have never been easy, but a key to increasing your sales to business customers is to focus on how difficult B2B buying has become and to develop a strategy to make it easier for buyers to help their company arrive at their buying decision.

I’ve seen how difficult business purchases have become in the history of my own company. A little more than 20 years ago, CEI focused on one service, managing the repair and aftermath of fleet collisions. Our message was that we could deliver superior results at a reduced cost, saving money on repairs, returning drivers to the road sooner, and lowering net repair expenses through the recovery of damages from responsible third parties.

In this business, we essentially had one buyer: the fleet manager, whose imperative was to cut costs. But with our expansion into driver safety management, the number of decision-makers at each of our prospects increased. Now, in addition to the fleet manager, weighing in on the decision are risk management, environmental health and safety, human resources, information technology, finance and legal departments.

This cast of characters involved in B2B purchasing decisions isn’t confined to my business alone – it’s the norm across most industries.

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Reuters

Britain will ban the sale of new petrol, diesel and hybrid cars from 2035, five years earlier than planned, in an attempt to reduce air pollution that could herald the end of over a century of reliance on the internal combustion engine.

The step amounts to a victory for electric cars that if copied globally could hit the wealth of oil producers, as well as transform the car industry and one of the icons of 20th Century capitalism: the automobile itself.

“We have to deal with our CO2 emissions,” Prime Minister Boris Johnson said at a launch event for COP26 at London’s Science Museum on Tuesday. “As a country and as a society, as a planet, as a species, we must now act.”

The mayors of Paris, Madrid, Mexico City and Athens have said they plan to ban diesel vehicles from city centers by 2025. France is preparing to ban the sale of fossil fuel-powered cars by 2040.

Read the article at Reuters.

NY Daily News

The first electric school buses will hit city streets this year after Mayor de Blasio signs an executive order requiring more than 20,000 on-road vehicles in New York City’s municipal fleet be plug-in electric by 2040.

The order, which de Blasio will announce in his annual State of the City on Thursday, will mean every single garbage truck, ferry, ambulance, police cruiser, bus, car and vehicle owned and operated by municipal agencies will have to be fully electric.

“To address our climate crisis, New York City needs to stop burning fossil fuels and electrify everything,” said de Blasio, who insists on being driven 12 miles in a hybrid minivan to his favorite gym on most workdays. “That’s why we’re making our entire fleet electric by 2040 – the equivalent of taking 750,000 cars off the street.”

Read the article at NY Daily News.

Forbes

The average owner holds onto a car, truck, or sport-utility vehicle for around seven years these days and finances it for nearly that long.

Smart buyers know that to get the best overall deal on a new vehicle they have to look beyond a vehicle’s sticker price and choose a model within a given size and price class that’s inherently cheaper to own over time.

The key factors to consider here are depreciation, fuel economy, insurance premiums, and the ongoing cost of maintenance and repairs. It may sound like a lot of work to research these variables, but gathering the data can be relatively easy, thanks to the experts at Kelley Blue Book.

Read the article at Forbes.

Green Car Reports

Just a year ago, GM changed its tune about the possibility of hybrids—and plug-in hybrids like the much-loved Chevrolet Volt—in the company’s near-term future.

Put simply, GM was finished with hybrids. There will be no follow-ups to the Volt, no long-rumored plug-in hybrid crossover, and even no more hybrids on the way.

With the electric Hummer still little more than a Super Bowl tease, and the electric Cadillac that will lead GM’s new EV push not to be revealed until April, GM’s annual presentation to investors Wednesday included some doubling down on its strategy to axe hybrids and focus only toward electric vehicles.

Read the article at Green Car Reports.

The Detroit Bureau

Once boasting a broad array of products, the Chrysler brand is today a shadow of its former self, with just the Pacifica and Voyager minivans – the last originally sold as a Plymouth model – and the 300 sedan.

With sales of minivans relatively flat, and demand for the big four-door fading fast, along with the rest of the sedan market, observers have begun asking questions about Chrysler’s long-term viability.

As parent Fiat Chrysler Automobiles moves closer to its official merger with France’s PSA, the two companies will have close to a dozen different brands to deal with, a number that may simply be too many to cope with.

Read the article at The Detroit Bureau.

Electrek

Tesla CEO Elon Musk aims for Tesla vehicles to become revenue-generating assets for their owners and also warns that it’s a risk buying gasoline cars due to the potential for an accelerated depreciation.

The electrification of the auto industry is getting ready to accelerate significantly in the next few years, and it will have a broader impact than people think in a shorter timeframe.

With all the new EVs hitting the market in the next few years, car buyers will adopt the same mind-set that electric vehicles will take over and even if they are themselves not ready to buy a new electric car, they will not buy a new gasoline car in fear of the resale value.

Read the article at Electrek.

CNN

The human cost of China’s coronavirus outbreak is tragic and the cost to businesses around the world could also become severe in the coming weeks – it only takes one missing part to stop a line.

Manufacturers around the world have come to depend on parts from China to keep their own supply chains going. Experts fear that factories across the globe could ground to a halt if many of the plants across China remain closed this coming week.

Auto plants could be among the first to feel the impact. China is a major supplier of parts to auto plants around the world — shipping nearly $35 billion of parts in 2018, according to UN data. You can’t build a car with only 99% of its parts.

Read the article at CNN.

By Ed Pierce, Fleet Industry Marketer

Possibly the most viewed “Call to Action” column I’ve written is “Think Sales to Get the Best Return on Your Next Trade Show.

In fact, NAFA has referred fleet service providers to this column to prepare properly for the NAFA I&E. That column’s conclusion was that a big booth, giveaways, and other marketing ideas do not ensure an acceptable return on the investment without a sales focus. All in all, an industry trade show exhibit and conference strategy should be handled by a sales and marketing double-team.

Trade show participation can shorten the decision-making time on the typically long sales cycle. It can help initiate or bolster relationships between sales and multiple sourcing team members. It also provides a unique opportunity for captive-audience product differentiators or user experience demonstrations.

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Fleet risk management is part of an organization’s DNA

By Jim Noble, eDriving’s Vice President of Risk Engineering

Over the years I’ve met many fleet professionals who are extremely knowledgeable about fleet safety. Yet, I’m always surprised how many don’t regard themselves to be involved in fleet risk management. Effective driver safety is fleet risk management. And, it’s time for them to be recognized as part of the same mission.

While a focus on employee safety is always a positive, all too often companies concentrate solely on the safety processes that take place within the workplace.

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