Dealer playbook

Dealer use only — not for the customer

Crawl, Walk, Run, Fly

Building a book of small fleet customers — the shops running two to ten vehicles. Start at the top. Don't skip a stage, and don't start calling until you can do stage one in your sleep.

STAGE 1 — CRAWL Goal: explain it in twenty seconds

Know what you're actually selling

Not dots on a map. If you can't say what this does for a four-truck plumber in one sentence, no script in the rest of this page will save the call.

Say this, out loud, until it's yours

"It gives you a record of what your trucks actually did all day — so you can prove it to your customers, and find the time you're losing."

That's it. Two benefits: proof and time. Everything else is detail. He does not want to hear the words telematics, platform, geofence or API, and none of those words will help you.

The four things it does, in plain language

Learn these as four short stories, not as features. A story about a plumber lands; a bullet list about "real-time visibility" does not.

01

It proves you were there

A property manager phones a four-truck mechanical shop and says your guy never showed up Tuesday, so we're not paying for Tuesday. The owner asks his tech. The tech says he was there. Now it's one man's word against another's, and the contractor almost always eats it — because arguing costs more than the invoice.

With tracking he opens one report: arrived 9:12, left 10:48. The argument stops before it starts. He gets paid, and he keeps the contract at renewal because he can show the whole year's visits.

"When a customer says nobody showed up — what do you say back?"

02

It shows you where the day went

Ask an owner how long a service call takes and he'll tell you two hours. He has never measured it. He doesn't know how much of the day is driving, how much is waiting, and how much is a trip back to the shop for a part.

Tracking splits those apart. Very often the answer is that he could fit one more job a day without hiring anybody. One more job a day across four trucks is a serious number, and it's his own number — you don't have to claim anything.

"How many calls does a tech finish in a day — and where does the rest of the day go?"

03

It puts a name on what's leaking

Fuel is one number on a statement. Idling is invisible inside it. Overtime gets approved after it already happened. A van going home at the weekend is nobody's line item. None of it is theft — it's just that nothing has a name attached, so nothing can be fixed.

Tracking attaches names. This van, this driver, this Tuesday. Things that get measured are the only things that ever change.

"What's fuel costing you — and can you tell me which van is the worst?"

04

It protects the truck, the gear and the driver

A stocked van parked on a street overnight is worth more than the van. A trailer of landscaping gear disappears on a long weekend and nobody notices until Tuesday.

You find out it's moving while it's still findable. And the same record that protects the truck protects the driver — when a customer claims your man wasn't there, this is what proves he was.

"What's in a fully stocked truck overnight, and where does it sleep?"

Three things it is not — and owners assume all three

It's not a map somebody stares at all day

A four-truck shop has no dispatcher and shouldn't need one. It works as exception reporting — quiet until something's actually wrong, then it tells his phone. Say this early, because "I haven't got time to watch a screen" is what he's thinking.

It's not surveillance, and we don't pitch it as one

The point isn't whether somebody took ten minutes in the bathroom. The point is that a four-hour service call takes about four hours, not six because of a detour. It protects his people as much as it measures them — say that part out loud, every time.

It's not only for big fleets

The big fleets have staff to run it. Small fleets get more out of it per truck, because at four vehicles one wasted hour a day is a much bigger share of the business.

Don't move to stage two until

  • You can say the one sentence without reading it.
  • You can tell all four stories in under twenty seconds each, without notes.
  • You can explain it to someone outside the trade — a neighbour, your brother-in-law — and they get it, without you using the words telematics, platform or geofence.
  • You know which of the four you'd lead with for a plumber, and which for a landscaper.
STAGE 2 — WALK Goal: one customer

Get your first customer

One trade. One list. One script. The aim of this stage is a single signed account and the confidence that comes with it — not a territory.

Why two to ten is winnable

Everyone chases the hundred-truck fleet. Almost nobody serves the four-truck plumbing shop properly, and there are vastly more of them.

Lead with this, not with features

No contract. Month to month. Cancel any time and keep the hardware. Thirty-day money back.

Verizon Connect, Samsara and Geotab will put a small fleet on a multi-year term. For an owner with four trucks, signing three years with a company he's never met is the single biggest reason he says no — bigger than price. Take the risk off the table and you're having a different conversation from everyone else who called him this month.

The owner is the decision maker

At four trucks there's no committee and no procurement. The man who answers the phone can say yes, which is why a small deal can close in one meeting and a big one takes two quarters.

Onboarding costs you almost nothing

OBD-II ships to the customer and plugs into the diagnostic port in about thirty seconds. No truck roll, no install day. That's what makes a three-vehicle account profitable instead of a nuisance — and it means you aren't limited to businesses you can drive to.

They stay

The average client stays on the platform over eight years, and most new business comes from referrals. You're not selling a deal, you're starting an annuity that introduces you to the next one.

Pick one trade

Two to ten vehicles is the normal size of business in all of these. The first five are the densest in the GTA and the easiest to start with. Pick one — ten conversations in one trade teaches you their vocabulary and their season; ten across ten trades teaches you nothing and you'll sound generic in all of them.

TradeTypical fleetWhat opens the conversation
HVAC & mechanical3–10 vansEmergency no-heat calls, and proving contracted maintenance visits to property managers
Plumbing & drain2–8 trucksResponse time on water damage, and expensive shared gear that moves between trucks
Electrical contracting3–10 vansProving crew attendance when a GC back-charges for delay
Landscaping & snow3–10 unitsProof of plowing and salting when a slip-and-fall claim lands a year later
Courier & last-mile2–10 vansStops per hour, and shared vans where nothing can be pinned on a person
Mobile patrol & guard services2–8 carsProving the contracted number of patrols per night
Towing & roadside2–8 trucksMotor-club response clocks measured by the truck, not the driver
Waste & roll-off2–6 trucksMissed-pickup disputes and bins that vanish into sites
Building materials delivery2–6 trucksDelivery windows the builder schedules a crew around
Dump trucks & aggregate2–10 trucksCounting loads without paper tickets
Small contractors with equipmentMixedMachines stolen off open sites at the weekend
Trailer & container ownersMixedUnpowered assets found by walking the yard with a clipboard

Build one list before you dial once

A hundred businesses with a name, a trade, a rough fleet size and a phone number. Calling without a list is how people decide prospecting doesn't work.

Start here

Wrapped vehicles in traffic and in lots

The fleet advertises itself. Photograph the van, look up the company, note how many you see. A contractor's yard on a Sunday tells you the exact fleet size before you ever call.

Start here

Local search and maps

Search the trade plus the town. The photos usually show the vehicles. Reviews mentioning "the tech was late" or "nobody showed up" tell you the pain is live before you dial.

Lists

Trade association member directories

HRAI for HVAC, Landscape Ontario for the green trades, the local construction association, the mechanical and electrical contractor associations. A pre-qualified directory of exactly the right businesses.

Lists

Municipal and institutional vendor lists

Towns, school boards, hospitals and property management firms publish approved-vendor and awarded-contract lists. Anyone on one is real, insured, and already doing documented work for a client who audits them.

In person

Supply house counters

Plumbing, electrical and HVAC wholesalers at 6:30am. Every owner and lead hand in the area passes through. You aren't selling at the counter — you're becoming a familiar face and collecting names.

Getting the meeting

The job of the first contact is not to sell tracking. It's to earn fifteen minutes. Lead with the contract terms, because that's the part that's genuinely different, and be willing to disqualify him out loud.

The cold call

Thirty seconds

"Hi — is this the owner? I'll be quick, and I'm not going to pitch you on the phone.

We do GPS tracking for trades fleets around here. The only reason I'm calling: most guys your size who look at this get quoted a three-year contract. We don't do contracts at all — it's month to month, you own the hardware, and there's a thirty-day money back.

If it's worth fifteen minutes I'll show you what it actually does for a fleet your size. And if it isn't a fit, I'll tell you that."

Why it works: it names his objection before he does, and offering to disqualify him is the least salesy thing he'll hear all week. Do not describe features. Fifteen minutes is the only thing you're asking for.

The email

Subject: no contract

"You run — what, four or five trucks?

Most tracking companies will want you on a three-year term for a fleet that size. We don't do contracts. Month to month, you own the hardware, thirty-day money back if you hate it.

Worth fifteen minutes? I'm around Thursday."

Why it works: short enough to read on a phone between jobs, opens with a question about him, proposes one specific day. No attachment, no brochure, no link — those are what make it look like a mailshot.

Qualify in sixty seconds

The worst outcome at this size is a long conversation with someone who was never going to buy.

1. How many vehicles?

Under two usually isn't worth either of your time. Over ten and volume pricing changes, so flag it.

2. Running anything now?

If so, get the provider and the contract end date. That date is the whole opportunity.

3. Who decides?

At this size it should be the person you're talking to. If not, get the owner on the next call or you'll present twice.

4. Why now?

There's almost always an event — a theft, a dispute, a fuel bill, a complaint. Find it. That event is what you sell to.

Don't move to stage three until

  • You have a written list of 100 named businesses in one trade.
  • You've made 100 calls and booked at least a handful of meetings.
  • You've signed one customer — even a two-vehicle one.
STAGE 3 — RUN Goal: a routine that doesn't depend on mood

Make it repeatable

You've proved it works. Now handle the objections properly, run the meeting the same way every time, and put outreach on a schedule instead of doing it when you feel like it.

What you'll actually hear

Seven, in roughly the order of how often they come up at this size.

"I've only got three trucks. I know where they are."

"You probably do. It's not really about where they are — it's what the day cost you. When a customer says nobody showed up, what do you say back?"

Don't argue the premise, he's right. Move it off location and onto proof, payroll and billing, which is where the money actually is at three trucks.

"My guys will think I don't trust them. Someone will quit."

"That happens when it's sprung on people. Tell them what it's for and it lands the other way round — when a customer claims your guy never showed, this is what proves he was there. It protects them more often than it catches them."

This is real, and it's the objection that kills deals quietly weeks later. Say plainly that this isn't a surveillance tool and we don't pitch it as one. Tell him to tell his crew.

"I'm locked in with Samsara / Geotab / Verizon."

"Fair enough — when does it end? I'll make a note and call you sixty days before. And when you do come out of it, ask them what happens to the hardware."

We do not buy out competitors' contracts, so never imply we might. A locked-in prospect isn't a lost one — it's a dated one. A pipeline of contract end dates is worth more than a list of cold names, and the hardware question plants something that grows on its own.

"It's too expensive for what it is."

"What do you bill an hour? And what's fuel costing you now? … Right — so we're talking about roughly that, a month, across the whole fleet."

Use his numbers, never yours. Realistically an hour of payroll, a couple of gallons of fuel and one extra service call is about $200 to $300 a month for most trades — but he must arrive there from his own figures, or it's just a claim. Never quote him a saving he didn't give you.

"I tried one of those AirTag things and it was useless."

"They are useless for this — an AirTag only works when somebody else's phone happens to be near it. Park a trailer in a yard overnight and it goes dark. Wrong tool, not a cheaper version of the right one."

Agree with him hard. He's correct, and it costs you nothing to say so.

"We're too small for this. That's for the big fleets."

"The big fleets have a person whose job is watching a map. You don't, and you shouldn't. This works the other way for you — quiet until something's actually wrong, then it tells your phone."

Exception reporting, not a map to stare at. That framing is exactly what makes it fit a business with no dispatcher.

"Let me think about it."

"Of course. Though there's not much to think about on the risk side — there's no contract, it's month to month, and if you don't like it in the first thirty days we buy it back, no questions. What's the part you want to think about?"

The terms are your close. Ask the last question and wait — whatever he names is the real objection, and it's usually one of the six above.

The meeting, and the close

You've earned fifteen minutes. Don't spend them demonstrating software.

Run the discovery, don't run a demo

There's a separate question set for this — the opening scripts, the one question that starts every call, and what to ask and listen for in each of the twelve trades. Use it. It's the difference between a demo they sit through politely and a conversation they remember.

Show one screen, not forty

Whatever he raised, show the part that answers it and stop. Every extra feature you demonstrate is another reason to think this is bigger and more complicated than he needs.

Close on the terms

"Start with two of them, month to month. If it's not doing anything for you in thirty days, we buy it back." Starting small isn't a concession at this size — it's how a cautious owner says yes, and the other trucks follow within the quarter.

Then get out of the way

Hardware ships, or a mobile technician comes to them, usually within a day or two. After install someone walks them through the platform and sets up the alerts that matter. Phone support Monday to Friday. Nobody's expected to learn it on day one — say that, because "I haven't got time to learn software" is an unspoken worry at this size.

A month that repeats

Week 1
  • Top the list back up to 100 names. It drains faster than you expect.
  • Line up two referral partners: one bookkeeper or insurance broker, one supplier.
Week 2
  • Twenty calls a day, before 8:30 or after 4:30, when owners are actually reachable.
  • Email the ones who don't answer — same day, three lines, no attachment.
  • Expect roughly one meeting per twenty dials starting out. Log every contract end date you hear.
Week 3
  • Run the meetings. Discovery, not demo. One screen.
  • Debrief each one the same day: what did he actually say, and which objection came up?
  • Keep calling. The mistake is stopping outreach the week you have meetings booked.
Week 4
  • Close what's closeable. Two vehicles is a fine start — don't push for the whole fleet.
  • Install, then check in at day seven and set up the two alerts he'll actually use.
  • Diarize the thirty-day referral ask for everyone you've signed.
  • Review dials, meetings, closes. Fix the worst ratio — only that one.

Don't move to stage four until

  • You can name which of the seven objections you get most, and you have a good answer for it.
  • You're booking meetings every week without a push from anyone.
  • You have a handful of customers and a growing list of contract end dates.
STAGE 4 — FLY Goal: a book that pays you while you sleep

Build the annuity

Individual sales are the slow way. The business is the recurring book, the referral engine, and the dated pipeline of everyone else's contracts running out.

Does the maths work for you

You buy at your dealer rate and set your own price, so only you can answer this. Put your real numbers in. Nothing here is a projection or a promise — it's arithmetic on figures you typed.

Hardware, per vehicle

Monthly service, per vehicle

Volume

Selling a plug-in instead? An OBD-II unit ships to the customer and goes into the diagnostic port in about thirty seconds — no technician. Set the install cost to 0 and watch the hardware margin: it is the difference between making about thirty dollars on a vehicle and making about a hundred and fifty, with no truck roll either. For two-to-ten vehicle trades that is usually the right product.
Retail reference — internal only. The product sells at $279 for the hardware, including onsite installation and a lifetime hardware replacement warranty — a failed unit is replaced free, the customer pays to have it fitted — and $25 to $29.95 per vehicle per month — the rate coming down as the vehicle count goes up. No contract, month to month. Use it to sanity-check where you price. Don't hand these figures to a customer as ours.
The last line is the one that matters. Month-to-month billing makes the first month look small. The eight-year figure is why this is a business rather than a series of sales — and it's also why you should never discount the monthly to win a deal. You'd be discounting eight years, not one month.

The two things that compound

Highest yield

Referrals, asked for properly

Most new business already comes this way. Ask at the thirty-day mark while they're still pleased, and ask for something small and specific: "Who else do you know running a few trucks? I'm not after a list — one name would do." Nobody refuses one name. This is the single highest-return sentence in this playbook.

Highest yield

Referral partners who already serve the trades

Bookkeepers and accountants with contractor clients, insurance brokers writing commercial auto, truck upfitters and van outfitters, equipment dealers, uniform and supply reps. They each know forty owners. One good relationship here beats a hundred cold calls, and it keeps producing without you.

Compounds quietly

The contract-end-date list

Every "I'm locked in" you logged becomes a warm call sixty days before their term ends — when they're already annoyed and already shopping. After a year of prospecting this list is worth more than any cold list you could buy.

Then, and only then, go wide

Once one trade is producing reliably, add the next one. You'll move faster the second time because the objections are the same and only the vocabulary changes. Property management and condo corporations are worth a mention here — not as customers, but because a property manager will happily tell you which mechanical and landscaping firms service their buildings.

HARD RULES Applies at every stage

What you cannot say

Accuracy rules, not style preferences. A claim you can't stand behind costs more than the deal it wins.

Never say it lowers their insurance premium. No such claim has been established. There's a real and different angle you may use: personal or unauthorized use of a commercial vehicle is generally not covered under a commercial policy, and this helps them manage that exposure. That's an exposure argument, not a discount promise.
Never claim ELD or hours-of-service certification unless your supplier has confirmed it in writing for that specific case.
Never quote temperature or cold-chain specs. Same rule.
Never invent numbers. No recovery rates, no theft statistics attributed to us, no customer counts beyond roughly 500. If you didn't get a figure from the customer or from this page, don't say it.
Never say it prevents time theft. Policy and expectations do that. The product makes the accountability possible — a real and defensible difference, and the version that doesn't frighten his crew.
Never promise to buy out a competitor's contract. We don't do it. Take the end date instead.

What you can say, because it's true

SinceProfessional GPS installation since 2007
CustomersRoughly 500 across Canada, the US and other countries
RetentionThe average client stays on the platform over eight years
Ownership100% Canadian-owned, Toronto-based support
GrowthMost new business comes from referrals
TermsNo contracts, month to month, cancel any time and keep the hardware
GuaranteeThirty-day money back — if they're not satisfied, we buy it back
HardwareBelongs to the customer outright
WarrantyA failed unit is replaced free for the life of the service; fitting the replacement is charged. Covers failure, not damage or theft