EDITOR’S NOTE
THE NEW DIESEL WORLD INSIDER
I’ve been in the auto industry my entire professional life. I started turning wrenches at a small truck shop straight out of high school, then went to a Dodge dealership doing electrical and front end work. After the economy crashed around 2008, I left the dealer and went back to school while working at a truck shop and auto supply store between classes. After doing that for a few years, I ended up getting handed a magazine to run; that mag was “RV Magazine.” It was a bimonthly title, so I had time on the side to do other jobs. First one was working for a production company on an automotive TV show, consulting and running a build crew. The second was working for PPE Diesel in sales and marketing. And then Diesel World called, and well, here I am.
All these moves around the automotive industry have taught me many things, and when I was in sales I realized there isn’t much data available on the diesel performance industry or areas to get industry specific tips that can help your company grow. SEMA, the RVIA and other organizations provide many services or reports that offer data like market size in varying areas, numbers of parts sold, average amounts spent on specific parts by age and gender, buying trends, regional demographics among dozens of other things that are immensely helpful for those in just about any automotivebased industry — except for diesel performance. We’ve got almost nothing. Having this info available makes doing business much easier. For example, large companies like Pepboys, Walmart or 4 Wheel Parts make their buying decisions based on, among other factors, market share and potential sales based on some of the aforementioned data. So without that info, it can be tough to get your company’s parts in their stores. Or if you’re a smaller brickand-mortar shop and you want to grow, you’ll want to add products and services to your business. Making the decision on what to start offering your customers is much easier if you can have a little data on what is selling in your target area or tips on the latest trends. I listed off a few but there are dozens, if not hundreds, of other like examples where data can help. Also among this data, many publications exist that offer tips, insights into how some companies have succeeded, WD information, who to call and why, emerging revenue streams and so much more — but not for diesel. Essentially, there’s help out there for just about everyone, except for us.
Now I said all that to tell you this: if you’re a diesel industry professional, help is now here. We just released the Diesel World Insider. Diesel
World Insider will be the diesel performance professional’s source for insider info, data, tips and tricks, interviews with industry greats and tons more all to help grow your business. Want to see what I mean? The data collection is growing and the first several articles are now up with more coming all the time. Head to Dieselworldmag.com/insider and check it out. Diesel World Insider is a free site and will continue to be, just sign up for the newsletter and you’ll get access to archived articles, as well as all the new stuff, in your inbox every other week. If it turns out you’re not a fan, all good, you can unsubscribe at any time (but I’m pretty sure you’ll be a fan).
Growing up a car guy, with the automotive lifestyle very strong in my jeans, and starting in my own automotive career, I swore I’d never leave the industry. I made that promise to myself. I also promised myself that, no matter what, I’d always do what I could to help the industry grow, never to take advantage of it. This is just one more step in that direction. I’m proud of this new venture, excited that we, as a team, have finally been able to pull off this new venture — something I’ve wanted to do for years.