National Private Truck Council, NPTC

Sokolis had a booth at the National Private Truck Council annual conference. It’s wasn’t the first time and it probably won’t be our last time.

Being there made me ask myself the question, what makes displaying at a conference a success. Yes, we all want tons of leads from fleet operations of all sizes but beyond that, how can we measure success.

At the NPTC show we didn’t get tons of fleet leads looking for us to do fuel management for them. We did get some real quality private fleet leads. We saw a few of our fuel management clients and had some good time to talk with them and catch up. We talked to several private fleets that right now, we weren’t a fit for them. Though we built a foundation for a relationship in the future.

Many trucking people wanted to talk diesel fuel prices with us. They weren’t looking for us to be their fuel manager or anything like that; they just wanted our view as fuel experts. No sale today but what happens if those people changes jobs, they might remember us and give us a call. We just had that happen from a fleet manager who was at a company 6 years ago. He has been with this new company for 2 years and they were having fueling issues. He reached out to me and wanted a reminder of what we do and I explained to him.

He was very excited about saving money on fuel costs and having someone strategically source is diesel fuel. After calling a few of our references and flying out to meet him and other company executives, we signed the account and let the fuel savings begin.

So you just don’t know what a conference or a relationship can lead towards. When quality people are around quality people good things seem to happen. It might not be today. But if you do the right thing. Things will happen.

Overall, I give it thumbs up. We will probably be back next year to Cincinnati and the National Private Truck Council as long as the dates fit our schedule. Safe driving and good fuel savings.