Selling for Steady Ground in Shaky Times

Holman Marketing
March 27, 2022

You’re facing a rapidly changing business environment, where budgetary decisions have to be made quickly and efficiently.

That includes cuts to fleet spend and overall fleet inventory. The number of vehicles you needed to serve your customers just a few months ago may no longer be a feasible reality in the current market. What if your fleet could relieve pressure from your company’s budget with some timely right-sizing measures?

Here’s how a fleet facing decreased demand during the pandemic directed cash back into their business to lay the groundwork for a more steady future.

Customer Challenge

With business drastically decreasing in light of ever-changing mandates, the manager of a 300-vehicle energy fleet faced a directive to reduce the active fleet by 20 percent. Tightening belts to align with current utilization patterns made sense, but the manager had to carefully balance two ways to achieve this goal:

Park these 50 vehicles for an extended period of time

Sell the vehicles immediately

Before making any decisions, the manager turned to Holman for some analytical support.

Delivered Solution

After analyzing data for 50 vehicles averaging two years in service against their current market value, the fixed and variable costs revealed selling was the best move for the company instead of removing them from service for an undetermined number of months.

Although the net sale amount would not cover the remaining book value in most cases, the reduced lease payments and operating costs would put the company in a break-even position within 60 days.

Eager to avoid any market uncertainty, and pleased with a previous experience using our online selling program, the fleet manager requested a quote to purchase all 50 vehicles.

Business Results

The manager was pleased with the guaranteed proposal that Holman presented, and accepted the offer. Once the vehicles were off the books, the company was poised to see nearly $1,000,000 in fixed and variable cost savings in the first 12 months.