Driving Innovation: Fleet Management and Telematics with Azuga & Chris Johnson- Are you Tracking?

Revolutionizing Fleet Management with Azuga: A Conversation with Chris Johnson

In this episode of 'The Wireless Way,' the host welcomes Chris Johnson, Vice President of Business at Azuga, a Bridgestone company. The discussion delves into how fleet management solutions are transforming business operations and enhancing safety. Chris shares his journey, insights into the evolving telematics industry, and practical applications of advanced fleet tracking technologies. They explore the importance of strategic partnerships, the value of actionable data, and the emotional connections in business relationships. Personal anecdotes highlight the impact of these technologies on both business and personal safety.

00:00 Introduction and Recent Successes
00:22 Guest Introduction: Chris Johnson from Azuga
02:00 Chris Johnson's Background and Career Journey
03:46 The Evolution of Fleet Management Technology
07:29 The Role of Trusted Advisors in Fleet Management
08:40 The State of the Fleet Tracking Industry
11:47 Leveraging Technology for Fleet Safety and Efficiency
16:26 Engaging with Clients: Questions and Strategies
21:50 Emotional Connection in Sales and Marketing
24:06 The Importance of IoT in Fleet Management
25:40 Challenges and Misconceptions in Fleet Tracking
26:27 Target Markets and Ideal Clients
30:06 Personal Stories and Real-World Applications
35:00 Replacing Existing Solutions
39:00 Final Thoughts and Relationship Building
42:35 Conclusion and Call to Action

https://www.azuga.com/

Transcript

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 0:00

Hey, welcome to another episode of The Wireless Way. Man, I feel like we've been on a roll lately. A lot of great content, a lot of great guests, a lot of, just good solutions that are changing and improving the way we not only do business, but frankly the way we live. Let's think about it. When business is going smoother, our personal lives are going smoother, usually, right? Glad you can make this episode. I'm also grateful for Chris Johnson. He's with us today. He's our guest from Aoga. And before I bring him on, I just wanna tell you a little bit about him. He is, he's the vice president business at Aoga, a Bridgestone company a veteran and fleet management solution sales with over 20 years of experience. He has a unbridled passion for enabling partners to provide solutions that help commercial fleets to be safer and more efficient, using best in class fleet management and safety technology. And I can attest to that just in the short few times that we have spoke. I feel like I've met a kindred spirit when it comes to passion. You gotta be passionate about what you do, when you believe in what you're doing. That's easy. Clearly he believes in it and I believe I'm right there with him. At Azua, the Bridgestone company, a leading provider of connected vehicle solutions and safety, telematics. We'll be talking more about that. He believes in the power of strategic partnerships working together to drive growth and revenue while delivering exceptional customer value. Isn't that what we're all here for? That's why he is excited to introduce, the Suga Partner program. I'm excited to be a part of that program and not only empowers your business with revenue generating opportunity, but also enhances your ability to deliver exceptional value to your customers within the fleet. Tele telematics vertical leveraging their cutting edge technology, dedicated support and comprehensive training resources to ensure mutual success. So yeah a lot there, Chris. Thanks for being here, man. I can't wait to unpack all that.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 1:49

That's awesome. Thank you so much for that wonderful introduction. I feel I have a lot to live up to right now.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 1:54

Yeah. Yeah. I'm confident you will and you have been. But as always is the first question, man. It's you know what's not in the bio. Tell us a little bit more. How did you get to where you are today? What was the beginnings?

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 2:07

Yeah. What's not in the bio?

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 2:09

I.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 2:09

am a proud daddy of four teenagers here in Monroe Township, New Jersey. So they are my passion and every day I wake up in the morning, I'm like, what cool things can I do to help grow and scale aga so I can make sure that these kids could get a decent college education? So me and the wife, we have been here for about eight years and it's been a really fun ride starting to work with. And something interesting about me is, I've been elevated very recently to the Vice President of Business Development, which I'm very excited for. And that was predicated on the success that I had in starting a reseller organization for Azua and. And I think the main reason why is because I am not the best prospecting salesperson, right? What I was always able to do is, although I always got nervous about trying to find an opportunity prospect for it, whenever I was able to get in front of the customer, I was actually pretty decent at closing the deal, right? So I was like, where can I the world of sales? Into a world of technology advisement and not have to, heavily go to the direct sales model, which I just don't personally feel comfortable with. Thank God for the wonderful world of the channel, right

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 3:28

Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 3:29

I've been. Now taking AGA and Bridgestone in our fleet IOT technology into basically a different place. That's not traditionally where you'll see iot technologies like this. And we're really excited because honestly aligns with the way that I operate. But more importantly, I think what together, Chris, we can help solve huge business problem Help technology advisors be comfortable positioning this as a non-traditional part of the usual telecom portfolio. So that's an interesting part of the bio for me.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 4:04

No, that is and I wanna pull on a little string. So have you always been a technologist or was there a time that. Technology was a new thing for you, or have you always been a techie guy or a gadget guy?

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 4:17

Yeah, I always was a computer nerd. I knew I loved technology in college. I studied telecommunications management my first job outta college was an at and t truck engineer. And for all those in the telecom world, it's not very exciting to sit in front of a computer in the early two thousands and just do provisioning on trunks and circuits. So day. Now I have that techno technology and that telecom background. But one day the guy from British Telecom comes in and knocks on the door and he has a beautiful Rolex and a Beamer he just pulled up in the parking lot with, and I'm like, what do you do? And he told us he was their account, account rep for at and t for a specific partnership they had. once I found out how much he made. I wanna transition into the world of sales,

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 5:09

Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 5:09

For me, starting to work in the telecom vertical first for a, actually one of the first GPS navigation and tracking solutions on a smartphone. Nextel, believe it or not, was the first phone that had not only a GPS chip, but also the ability to run Java applications and have a data connectivity. So you actually saw like field service management software, location-based services, software show up back in 2005. I gravitated towards that. Then started working with the wireless carriers themselves. I used to work for Sprint and then I. I tried to do a few different things, but world dragged me back in, in a great way, into the Fleet iot, fleet management, fleet technology, fleet software as a service. Because of all the solutions that I see out there, this is the only one that I know from an altruistic perspective where me and the partners that I work with might have inadvertently saved somebody's life.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 6:12

Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 6:13

the safety technology that we employ that's really what my passion is and that's what I love, and that's the word that I love to spread.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 6:19

Fantastic. And I can relate with you what you said earlier in your comments. I personally never consider myself a great salesperson either, but yet I've made a really good living for, better part of two decades. And I've been really thinking about that. Or I think being a salesperson has evolved. I've interviewed some some sales trainers and authors bill Sinek comes to mind. He and I did an episode, is cold Calling Dead? And it's wow. As a salesperson, that kind of stings. But then it occurred to me, I, the reason I don't feel like a great salesperson. I don't feel like I sell anything. I solve problems. And I make friends. Those are fun. Making friends is fun. I. Solving, helping your friends solve problems. That's fun. And we get to make money doing that. Sign me up. That's why I don't even, when I was I, I did, direct sales, I was a manager for a team one of the first Comcast business teams in Atlanta. And I used to tell, people are like, oh, I just hate going door to door. Every, everyone's so mean and they don't wanna talk to me. I'm like, look, we're not going door to door selling anything. We're not even soliciting. We're just going door to door introducing ourselves and just try to make new friends. Hey. And by the way, if we can help'em, we'll help'em if we can't help'em, we made a new friend. Thank you very much. Next door. Let's just keep going, but no, that's fantastic. So you're here now aga a leadership role in business development and, for me working here at Intelysis. Working with traditional telecom partners. One of the challenges that I, that I'm looking to tackle with you is taking these traditional telecom, partners that are majority been selling circuits and connectivity and dial tone.'cause when you say fleet tracking and iot, that, a lot of people would argue that was never a part of the original telecom. Conversation. It was trunks, it was PRIs, it was, coax and fiber and all the traditional telecom. But when you introduce connectivity into a product, now it's right in on a network. There, there really is no fleet tracking without connectivity, right? So now I tell partners, Hey, maybe 10 years ago you were right, but. Tracking asset and fleet tracking is just as part of technology Telecom channel as anything else. It's a part of the tech stack is solving business problems. So before I get on a rampage here, I wanna get your opinion, what is the state of the industry when it comes to, tracking devices and, asset management in the IOT space?

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 8:40

You're spot on in regards to what you're seeing in the elu. Basically an evolution, Of, of what's going on with IOT in general, but more importantly within fleet management. So for me, in my industry we are a software as a service recurring revenue business model, And we capture data from a machine that happens to have four wheels on it. Bridgestone really loves, by the way, because we're fully a Bridgestone company and extended upon their vision for sustainable mobility deployment for the fleets that they serve worldwide. So when you look at the solution and then it takes that data and puts it into the cloud through a wireless connection and. We render that via a user interface on the web or a mobile device, pure software as a service. That's really the core of the technology. When you look at the fleet tracking industry it's at an inflection point. It's evolved beyond GPS dots on a map, Which is where this all started, which was GPS visibility, vehicle location, accountability. sure your guys aren't hanging out at the local convenience store for too long before, they start their workday making sure that their overtime costs were kept in check, the usual value proposition of. Accountability around engine idling and fuel usage like that whole table stake stuff that the GPS tracking information provided along with speeding alerts and all that stuff, but now fleets demand more actionable insights. Chris, that's really what it is. And it's those AI power dash cams that everyone hears about. That everyone is that, oh my God, this spy cam big brother thing that's been installed in my vehicle, right? Which is actually a driver behavior monitoring and coaching solution. By the way, that happens to be a dash cam, believe it or not, solution, that technology, we're actually trying to sell insurance on top of a customer's insurance because when you're a. So you own or operate a corporate fleet and your customers there, they have corporate fleets that they own and manage. Think about sitting in your office, owning a business having 50 vehicles the road right now with your name on the side of it. And all you do is all you think about is the risk associated with the fact that, God forbid, one of those mobile billboards. That happen to be servicing your customers get into an accident. And then nuclear verdict in one second could basically end the company. So the, when we talk about this technology, yeah. You have location of the vehicles. Sure. It monitors engine health. To better have a, visibility around the check engine light being on, which believe it or not, and many people would actually tell you if it's not their vehicle, they won't care that the tire and tire oil change, so to provide the visibility around location and engine health and maintenance, to me it's all about that safety spin. And the state of the industry is more about tapping into and finally being able to help. A client who has a corporate fleet peace of mind, right? Get control and have the confidence to know that their fleet is being protected and being managed appropriately. So that's what I'm seeing from this in the state of the tracking industry. What's fun, Chris, is that this technology. It's probably the most profitable and mature iot platform that's ever been out there.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 12:47

I agree.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 12:48

it's what is it like? There are 30 billion commercial vehicles in the us. 17 million of them already have of some sort of a tracking solution, which means there's still 45% white space. The compound annual growth rate of this industry is at 15%, right? The bottom line is commercial fleets are either gonna need this solution because of what I just explained for the control, confidence, and peace of mind, it's being mandated by the government

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 13:26

Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 13:27

a trucking company or. Sometimes now you're seeing it mandated or highly recommended by your insurance company because of the fact that a commercial automotive insurance has lost money for the greater part of 10 years and it's because of smartphones, distracted driving, more vehicles on the road, things of that nature. So the state of the industry is, this is not becoming, I'm gonna, I probably should get this solution. It's. Who am I gonna get it from? Because of all those reasons. And then obviously a trusted advisor is in a great position to help a company make that determination. So do you think so far about the state that I see out there today?

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 14:14

Man. No I agree with you. I agree with your concept of, of this being the most mature iot, a, a quick little side story. I always love side stories have you ever heard the name Kevin Ashton?

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 14:25

I haven't.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 14:26

Yeah, so Kevin Ashton, if you're listening, check the show notes. I'll try to remember to put a link in there. But Kevin Ashton is known as the, the godfather of the term IO ot, internet of Things. He was working for Proctor Gamble in 1999 and he was trying to convince his c level that they needed to put trackers. Their supply chain so they could optimize it.'cause they were just, pre fleet tracking. It was just good old boys clipboards, checking, calling in the dispatch and checking in. It was all very manual, very reactive, not proactive. It's interesting. That was kinda like the really, the first, commercially. Widely deployed. And then of course I got friends of mine. I know Steve Rumors is shaking his head. He was telling me like in the 96, he was putting pagers inside of Coke machines. So when the Coke ran out, it, it would send a signal back to some knock or something that they needed to go refill the Coke machines. But but very interesting. Now I love the story there you've shared with us. Man. Yeah. You mentioned dots on the map. You mentioned all the safety reasons, all of the, I love the actionable insights that the data collection, I've even heard a story of a delivery company was, noticing they were using the analytics going, Hey, we have a lot of windshield time and 30% of our deliveries are in this quadrant of the state, but yet our warehouse is way down here. And they were able to make a business case that made more sense to build another warehouse in that corner of the state because so much of the business was out there and they cut down the windshield time by having another distribution center just by because of the analytics. Knowing that trusted advisors spent a lot of their time, trying to save money on network connectivity and unified communications or even mobile devices, which I love and talk a lot about. What advice do you have for them? What kind of questions should a trusted advisor be asking? How would they know that they have a good opportunity for you?

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 16:24

Yeah, great question. So a lot of times I've been speaking with and consulting with tech advisors and this is definitely a new world for them. Yeah, they've definitely positioned traditional telecommunications related solutions data security. Mobility enablement cool SD WAN kind of stuff, And all the other cool technologies that are part of a tech advisor solution portfolio that they have access to. And then you can see in the proliferation of the iot, right? And now what we find is can lead with the solution to help sell other complimentary products associated with it.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 17:08

Yep.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 17:09

lemme give you an example first before I go into answering the question about the, how You could start a conversation, it's, we're selling a solution that has to operate on a mobile device, Because we have a driver scoring and reward system. Associated with the solution. We wanna give the driver their score, how they're driving. We score everybody, which is a risk way to manage risk. And we wanna be able to provide their score to them on their phone, and wanna rank them against the other drivers. Okay? So we wanna start gamification, and what we find is that when you gamify scores go up. Less speeding, less hard braking, less sudden acceleration, risk, right? And then you throw in a little reward system on the mobile phone where you can get a gift card for the best driver for the week or for the month.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 18:07

Wow. Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 18:08

It's am I talking about? I'm talking about you need to fight a mobile device to deliver this solution to. So now you can have a conversation with the customer about mobility enablement. Most of the trucking companies are gonna need a mobile data terminal, a tablet. To run the ELD for the hours of service that is demanded by the government and mandated by them, which is a solution that companies like azua provide. But now you gotta get device control on that tablet or that smartphone. So now you gotta position a mobile device management portal or a solution, and then you don't want'em to use the phone while they're driving or the tablet while they're driving. So now you wanna position a solution Locks the phone or the tablet down while the vehicle's in motion, right?

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 18:52

Yeah. An MDM.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 18:54

Yeah. And then you could talk about, Hey, I just sold your cool software as a service platform and you're gonna be using it in your office. You know what? You probably should make sure that data secure, right? You make sure you should have enough bandwidth all that data flowing in about driver behavior and diagnostics. Track and trace driver safety. Now you're gonna have a conversation about. telecommunications enablement. I love the fact that if the best tech advisor I've been working with have been leading with the solutions first, and then bringing in, the tech stack that is part of, we, the meat potatoes of it, if you will. To answer your question about, the why, like understanding the why behind. fleet's operation. All we really want our tech advisors to do is just ask the right questions to generate enough interest and bring us in and let us show you what we can do. Not leading with tech specs, but leading with solving the business problem. For instance, say you're an HVAC company I'm not gonna ask them about what GPS tracking that they use. But off, right off the bat, or how could a driver safety solution benefit you? I wanna talk about getting more service calls done per day, What can we actually do get you one more service call, right? For a construction fleet, talking to their language about reducing downtime or keeping jobs on schedule. And always looping in the human side during those conversations, asking them questions around the questions you wouldn't expect they wouldn't expect you to ask. But what's your situation around driver retention, safety, of the driver fleet, right? Because in the end we also, we wanna be partners, not vendors.'cause we all know the sale doesn't end when the contracts signed. Fleets need a trusted advisor. Help.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 20:44

Right.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 20:44

when it comes down to selling advice, basically tapping into the psychological reason for any solution sale, that's what I lead with my own personal opinion. I'm trying to show that this solution with the having to manage and operate a commercial. The safety concerns and the maintenance spend and the fuel you gotta spend and everything, it's a lot, right? But if you could show them that you have a solution and a best in

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 21:22

To.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 21:22

trusted partner that could provide you reassurance, protection, and empowerment, managing one of their biggest assets, their fleet, then they're gonna wanna listen. To the conversation and the partner you wanna bring to the table, right? So that's the way I personally sales enable partners tapping into and tapping the heartstrings, right? Which was actually taught to me by my wife's uncle Phil Dusenberry. He was a creative advisor from BBD and L, and that was a huge advertising firm. If you don't know who he is, he's the guy who wrote ge. bring good things to life. the choice of a new generation Pizza Hut, making it great. It's not tv, it's HBO. So I knew that guy, right? Yeah. And hearing him telling me stories in his, either his Hamptons spread or his penthouse in New York, as you can imagine, he was pretty successful because of him leading a creative team that came up with all that, like he taught me. That advertising and marketing really about all that emotional connection. if you can create that and it's organic and it's sincere because I think all of us wanna help truly help our customers. Like you wanna go to bed at night thinking I sold them something, I believe in it. I help them successful. I do something where with aga, we did a study. Where we try to determine our impact in reducing the frequency and cost of accidents and claims, right? Third party comes back and says, this year alone, bazooka, you guys are gonna prevent 11,000 accidents in your own customer base from ever occurring with the technology that you provide.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 23:23

Wow.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 23:24

coaching, the. The reward system the monitoring, the video, telematics, the whole thing. And when you apply the 0.71 fatality rate to commercial accidents in the US today, that's where I say we inadvertently save 117 people's lives this year. Just little old luga within our customer base of 14,000. and 400,000 active vehicle subscriptions, with the safety technology, you're a seller. into that. a very easy conversation, but more importantly, a very easy sale.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 24:06

Yeah,

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 24:07

think, Chris?

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 24:08

man. I would almost argue with you on one point you said inadvertently. I feel like it's maybe very intentionally. That's why it's there, is to save lives, save money, customer experience. On and on. That I agree with you. I mean that, this is definitely one of the areas of iot that should not be hard to sell. There's a lot of other things I talk about, humidity sensors, air quality sensors, noise detection, pipe monitoring. Yeah. Those are all very niche. You, not everybody needs'em, let's face it, we live in a world where, just today I've had. FedEx UPS and Amazon Drive by my front office here and looking out the window delivering to my neighbors and my home office. But that's just, example. And then I'm even noticing individual drivers, for that are working or contractors for most of those Amazon trucks or contractors, right? They're not always owned by Amazon, but there's even some like private personal vehicles that are out delivering. And every now and I hear partners go, oh yeah they use their smartphone for tracking. I'm like yeah, no, that's tracking the smartphone. That's not tracking or measuring the vehicle. If that driver gets out to deliver a package, if someone hops in and drives off, I. The phone's still where it was last, but the truck's gone. Now, not to mention the truck, but all the stuff on the truck. It's not always packages. It could be, I was talking to a welding company. These welding trucks out in Texas, in the oil and gas industry, I. They're couple hundred thousand dollars total, for the truck and all the stuff on it. And yeah, they were having pe people were stealing'em and selling'em on the black market or whatever. Yeah, there's a lot of reasons to have it. So let's transition and pivot just a little bit. We talked about, why and the state of the industry and what's a good fit. Is there anything that's a bad fit? Is there like any minimums or is there any deals that just might not make sense when it comes to fleet tracking?

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 25:54

Chris, that's a great question. You always have really great questions, by the way

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 25:58

I thank you. I.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 26:00

yeah. No one has ever asked me that before a very wise podcaster once told me to lose early.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 26:07

God, that guy was good. I know you're talking about, that was good.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 26:10

really good. He's really good. Very influential in the industry. And I'm talking about you

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 26:16

Oh.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 26:16

I. And I've actually taken that to heart because I don't know if I ever truly operated that way. But as we grow and as we scale, I probably should.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 26:26

Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 26:27

Chris, I probably should not go after police departments or fire departments or. Ambulances. Okay. Those are paramilitary organizations with a lot of and regulations and probably already have their very military ish point solutions already,

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 26:51

yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 26:52

are HIPAA compliant or are ruggedized, or are on the, probably like the first net network for the data for the government. That's probably a space that's specifically azua and most of our peers in the mixed fleet telematics space, play in. That's probably not where we wanna be. Everything else is on the table.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 27:13

Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 27:13

it's got wheels, they're a candidate. For AGA specifically, we thrive on the SMB, right? We love the small fleets because we made our living handling. Their business problems and going to an area that a lot of our competitors just weren't willing to go. They got too big for their britches. They put minimum commits, they potentially priced themselves out and we wanted to fill that niche. And a lot of our customers have been with us for numbers of years, some since even our inception in 2012. And. with and scaled with us, and one turned to five, turned to 50, turned to a hundred, turned to a private equity involvement and then the rest of their business. So you never know,

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 28:01

Oh, you had to grow with them. Yeah, grow with them. Yeah, that. So if I heard you right then. There's really no deal too small. If if they're, if they have a use case and a need and they're willing to pay the bill they can work with you.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 28:14

absolutely. Yeah.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 28:15

Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 28:17

Favorite verticals, field service management. We cut our teeth on landscapers and HVAC technicians and the trades. And then it transcended into after the Bridgestone acquisition showing up our tech stack around transportation and distribution, So it went from vehicle classes one through three, which mean like the work trucks and they get a little Ford f

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 28:42

Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 28:43

your tractor turnpike whenever I'm

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 28:47

That never happens. That never happens. Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 28:50

Exactly. And then construction, right? Logistics, extension of the warehouse,

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 28:57

Oh yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 28:58

right? So yeah, if it's got wheels, for the most part,

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 29:02

Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 29:03

candidate. And the cool thing about these solutions is they are not spec, they're built to support any vertical, but. When you get it, you could streamline it and purpose build it, give an administrative feel to that specific vertical

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 29:22

Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 29:22

their business needs. And that's all. The consultative component of the secret sauce that we help sales enable our partners with

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 29:29

Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 29:30

begin with the end in mind, right? And you wanna tailor that conversation specifically for that customer, for their problems, for their vertical. You don't show up and you throw up.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 29:41

That's right. That's right.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 29:42

those questions that I've been weaving into our conversation today about tapping into the fear, unfortunately, of the unknown risks of drivers making poor choices, vehicle breakdowns, rising fuel costs, potential lawsuits, and then how you could sell a feeling of empowerment,

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 30:00

Yeah,

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 30:00

a really cool software as a service solution. That really gets you there,

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 30:05

that's right.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 30:06

So yeah, so I would say funny story too, Chris, is I found that another vertical was a good fit for me. It was my vertical, it was Chris Johnson's fleet. So I have four cars. of them are mine, by the way, because of my wife and my teenagers who

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 30:29

Of course.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 30:30

So

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 30:31

Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 30:31

I wanna operate a fleet, and you're darn right, I'm gonna put this technology in those vehicles to protect myself the same way that I talk to our partners, to talk to their customers too, because I need peace of mind. I got a teenage driver out there on the road, don't want'em to speed. I don't want him to use his phone while at he's driving, right? I don't want any of that. And how do I know that's happening? I can monitor it. I get real time alerts. If any of that occurs, I can use that information to coach.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 31:02

All right.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 31:02

a driver's score, we can consult with each other talk about things we can improve. So the second day, Chris Junior is driving, I get an alert on my phone, says, Chris Johnson Hyundai Accident detected.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 31:16

Oh man.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 31:18

It's okay, I pick up the phone real quick I call Chris. I'm like, Chris, are you okay? And he goes, dad, yeah, I'm fine. I got into a little bit of a fender bender over here. How did you know? I was like, come on dude. What I do for a living? You got azua in your car, you got the camera pointing at you. I got the mobile application, the funniest part of the story was a cop was right behind him, And it was a very minor fender bender. So I get the video and it's, Chris pulled into the intersection a little too far, he backed up because he panicked and then hit the guy that was behind him, right in front of a police station. Of course. remember, I had the video in real time, And when this guy was saying My neck hurts, only was I able to give Chris in a report to show the. Police officer when he was doing his police report of the event and the video of the event. I was show him the GForce, which. Could not have did the G forces of that accident. Could not have done anything to trigger any soft tissue damage. So as soon as the other driver knew that I had video and then we knew it was a minor event, he didn't even bother to do a third party claim. I didn't have to have any insurance, anything, even though his bumper was a little, dented up.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 32:39

Scuff. Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 32:40

Yeah. But the, and the, so the power of that first notice of loss, that peace of mind that I got, that my son was okay in an accident. And the information that I used to exonerate myself was just a prime example for me personally. Of what On scale. We can help do for our corporate customers who have corporate fleets.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 33:01

Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 33:01

Yeah, that's a cool personal story of aga empowerment that shows you that there's a family vertical

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 33:09

Yes. Hey man, that's even more precious cargo for sure. Gosh, man, if we get into storytelling I've heard a lot of cool stories in this space. One, one that's even, off the beaten path pardon the pun, but a, inca cab video camera pointed out, and the driver, the guy was leaving the gas station turning on the road and bam, ran into somebody. One of the outward facing camera had a full, view of the windshield of the truck you come to find and to look smoggy like he hadn't been, come to find out the guy had been smoking in the vehicle. And and it had a film on the windshield and the way the sun was coming in. It blinded him for that while he was turning. But but it also came out with a company policy. No more smoke in ac company vehicles, which you would think is pretty. Pretty commonplace nowadays, but let's face it some, in some industries, they're still 30, 40 years behind when it comes to work culture, these are rough guys, man. Smoking in the vehicle with the windows up. What's the problem here? I do this all the time, but, but yeah. And then another one, a big utility company truck those big bucket trucks, was at intersection and the car in front of him threw it in reverse and slammed, backed into him at a high rate of speed, called the police, and of course, claimed that he ran into him and all and and the customers, was telling me that his driver. Was just smirking and just smiling the whole time, letting the guy just get it all out and, tell the whole story to the police officer when he got on the scene. And then the police officer turned him and says, so what happened? He goes. He just said here's the video. And had the whole thing on video. And the guy, the other guy got a ticket for false report. And of course it was a bucket truck. It scratched the paint, didn't even do any damage to the truck. But I thought, man, what a man. How cool they had that.'cause without it, it was his word against, if there was no witnesses. It's going to court and they're probably have to settle, there, there's so many stories and reasons why this is such a great solution. And so lemme ask you this as we wrap up before we get to the last word, just one more question. How often is it that you know. A customer already has a solution, and you guys would come in and replace them. You would upgrade them in a sense. Does that happen And usually what's the reasoning behind, leaving one provider and maybe even ripping, replacing it to put in your solution? Is that, do you see that happen much?

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 35:24

Yeah. It's, we know that within corporate fleets in the US there's a 55% penetration rate within telematics, but the way it's skewed is the the fleet. The more probable they already have a solution in place. thing about software as a service companies is that they absolutely love to sign up long-term agreements. So the technology, the fast paced technology and technological innovations within this specific vertical is mind blowing, So more than likely will engage a customer. Ask these. questions. Do you have a commercial fleet? Do you have concerns with your safety policies for your drivers? You wanna get them back safe at night? Making sure that you're optimizing your maintenance and mutual spend, all the usual questions, right? And more than likely they'll, if it's a larger fleet, they'll have something already, right? But the good news is that. More than likely the value proposition you can now provide through this partnership is going to be one of building upon what they already have an advanced solution solving multiple business problems around safety, efficiency, productivity, and compliance. That probably their solution, when they got it, wasn't able to check all those boxes, About 75 to 80%. more all the clients that you consult about this are not yet going to have right, the dash cam, and it's not a dash cam, it is a dash cam, it's a driver safety coaching monitoring solution in real time to yell at the driver while he is texting

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 37:19

Wow.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 37:19

beep it up and give a visual warning saying Stop texting. Stop eating, stop drinking, stop smoking, stop looking at in the window, open your eyes. And the funny thing is, we don't even send the video for three seconds. We want them to correct their action and then we'll send that video to the cloud and then you can watch it and use it for coaching and of course, record an accident.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 37:40

Sure.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 37:41

I'm talking about is probably functionalities that a lot of the customers that you engage might not have yet. And then obviously Azu has own unique value proposition probably being one of the. Best solutions that could provide the data from an insurance perspective to reduce automotive insurance premiums. So we wanna talk about quick ROI,

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 38:00

Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 38:01

Azua is the number one insurance telematics program provider in the country, right? Because of the way that our data, our solution, and our enablement helps our customers and their insurance companies reduce cost claims. It's pretty cool stuff, So big differentiator there. And then obviously from an azua perspective, we are Bridgestone, are fully a Bridgestone company, so there are huge benefits associated with facilitating the tires and the maintenance and the service needs of the fleet as well through our partnerships with our parent company.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 38:38

That makes.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 38:38

for you there very price competitive across the board. We always find spun the right way, even if they have a solution now. We could either displace it fairly quickly or compliment it before we displace it,

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 38:53

As we wrap up then any last words, is there anything we haven't covered or anything else you wanna share with us before we wrap?

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 39:00

In the end, I love being in the relationship business, right? And whether you're selling telecom technology I OT or tires at Bridgestone the focus has to be on delivering value and building trust. And I know it's a cliche, right? I practice it in real life, and it's true. It, it really is back to Mr. Uncle Phil Dusenberry and tugging out the heartstrings.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 39:29

Yeah, man. Yeah.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 39:30

In the end, for me, this game of telematics, it's not about track and trucks. It's not about selling dash cams. It really is the passion that I have about protecting people. And empowering businesses, and in fact, I lead with that mindset, for me, is followed. And I try to impart that philosophy on any partner of mine who I've been able to work with, add this product to their portfolio, give them an additional recurring revenue stream and make a one plus one equals three with them. It really comes down to the fact that we focus together on that relationship mindset of value and trust and about people and empowerment. It doesn't matter what technology you sell, right?

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 40:25

Right.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 40:26

Is what I love to incorporate. seems that Intelisys absolutely weaves into the value proposition with every engagement that they have with the vendor supplier, or a technology supplier, right? And I love being part of that ecosystem and continuing to expand upon that, to leverage the power of technology to solve business problems and save lives, which is, I get to. So that's my last words, Chris. What are.

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 40:56

Man, my last words are, wow you sp you're speaking my language. I love what you said there. Going back to what we said earlier, man, I feel like, if you're solving problems, you're adding value and making friends, you don't have to sell anything, even with good friends, I can't help my friend unless I ask my friend. Good questions. So it always goes back to, as advisors we have to ask better questions. We need to drill, we need to understand the complete business challenges. And back to your point, you can't open up the kimomno and go, Hey, you wanna buy some fleet tracking. That's not the, that's not how you sell it, hey, what kind of challenges are you having within your operations budget? Is there a part of your operations budget you would like more visibility into? If you could reduce the cost in any part of your business, what would that look like? So it's about asking better questions. And I've actually taught courses on asking great diagnostic questions. Shout out to my a friend again. Bill Stinnett sells excellence using this material for diagnostic questioning. It's just, you gotta have a methodology and, you can't just wing it, sometimes, Hey I tell people all the time, three outta four times. It works all the time for me when I wing it. But I obviously have a much better close rate when I have a plan. I've done my research, I've asked really good questions, and I partner with the right suppliers and vendors and even distributors. Man great conversation, Chris. I've enjoyed it, man. Thank you.

chris-johnson_1_03-21-2025_124959: 42:14

It was my absolute pleasure, Chris, and I'm really looking forward to working with you and getting the word out and just showing everybody with the power of Azuga and Fleet. can do to change the game, help drive more business and, help people be a little safer along the way. Why not?

chris_1_03-21-2025_125000: 42:33

Yeah, let's do it, man. I'm all in. And there you go folks. Another episode of The Wireless Way. Grateful you dropped in. Check the show notes. Get some good information there. And as always, if any of this resonated with you, you thought of a customer, you thought of a colleague a friend in the business, share this episode with'em. Tell'em about it, share the episode. And if you have any feedback, if you wanna, if there's any other topics you'd like me to cover, just go to the wireless way.net and contact us. Link on the top there, click that. Of course, you can also have access to all the past a hundred plus episodes of the podcast there. I'd love to hear from you. And again, hey, thanks for checking this out, and we'll see you next time on the Wireless way.