Revving Up Conversions: How TruckTractorTrailer.com is Modernizing the Trucking Industry With Guests John Gillie and Allan Anastacio

In this episode of "The Conversion Show" podcast, Erik Christiansen welcomes guests John Gillie, Founder & CEO of TruckTractorTrailer.com (TTT), and Allan Anastacio, Head of Sales & Sales Operations at TTT. From traditional to digital, John and Allan take us into the world of conversion marketing within the trucking industry. They discuss the unique challenges and opportunities in modernizing the trucking industry by providing a digital marketplace for buying and selling trucks, along with various services like financing and insurance.

Erik, John, and Allan discuss:

• Modernizing the trucking industry to keep up with industry standards and meet customer expectations.
• Buyer-seller imbalance: attracting and retaining buyers and converting visitors to customers.
• The right tools and partnerships are crucial for their growth.
• Refining their website's user experience.
• Continuous improvement and adaptation are key to navigating a rapidly changing market and achieving long-term success. 

Host: Erik Christiansen, CEO of Justuno

Guest: John Gillie, Founder & CEO of TruckTractorTrailer.com

Guest: Allan Anastacio, Head of Sales & Sales Operations at TruckTractorTrailer.com

Transcript:

Erik 00:00:51

Welcome to the Conversion Show. Today we have our special guest, John Gill, along with him, his counterpart Allan Anastacio, who heads up sales operations, everything which we'll get into today because we'd love to find out how our retailers operate behind the walls. but special guest, because we have a guest, you know, customer here with hands-on experience.

Erik 00:01:18

And so in the retail world, truck, tractor trailer.com, hop on LinkedIn. You can find, both John and Allan on there and check out their backgrounds. But, welcome to the show, gentlemen.

John 00:01:31

Thank you. Eric.

Erik 00:01:33

So we are just wrapping about this industry of truck tractor trailer. and how to engage you are with your own audience. and customers, leveraging your email list 250,000 is share out, not just sale stuff, but more of your podcast and content. today, looking at what you are, what campaigns you're currently running, which is a lot of engagement with your visitors.

Erik 00:02:08

Allan, you mentioned earlier what brought you to Justuno? I'd love to hear a little bit more again of, you know what Initially you were hoping to achieve and most importantly, where are we today? but what goals and focus are you to working on to grow your business?

Allan 00:02:28

Yeah. that's a great question. Eric. And, you know, I think it's really important for, us to really, understand our platform, and understand really what our goal is on there. Well, we are a SaaS-based e-commerce platform, a marketplace for buyers and sellers. but we call ourselves more of a community.

Allan 00:02:50

and, you know, our main goal is really to connect those buyers and sellers, but, you know, as you were talking about, with that before, how there's a lot of new technology out in the marketplace. There's a lot of technology on it. There's a lot of data that you can, you know, you can you can put IoT, you know, you can get your data, you know, kind of, other data that's critical to running a fleet operation.

Allan 00:03:15

so there's a lot of tech out there, but I think there's one thing that has been missing, for the better part of trucking, the trucking industry is. And everyone know that, buying and selling a truck, it's still very archaic. And it and and and that's something in terms of the shift. we're heading towards an, you know, we have to give, you know, some credit, you know, due to some factors, just like the pandemic.

Allan 00:03:42

Right? You know, to be able to really kind of increase the adoption, of these because in automotive, it's pretty, you know, it's pretty common, you know, for us to go online through a channel to, website, it and buy, you know, 5 to $30,000, used car or new car but in the trucking industry, equipment a little bit more.

Allan 00:04:05

complex, right? In terms of, you know, the, the not only the value but also, certain operations in terms of the specification. so it was always, hey, I'm going to go to a dealership, you know, that my dealership I've been using for the past 30 years. and it's always face-to-face. Now, because how businesses run and then the shortage, you know, our platform really, help create that community where a buyer can come on to their understand they are within, a platform that provides them everything from the ability to finance, get it insured, get it inspected, paid for and delivered, wherever

Allan 00:04:45

they are. and for us, you know, for us to really, have those conversion happen, right, you know, on to type. it was all about how are we going to engage, the early adopter, you know, to be comfortable, to make offers on to our site or search our site.

Allan 00:05:08

Especially of course we were a new startup, right? And, you know, something like, trucktractortrailer.com is really at the forefront of pushing this type of equipment sales between buyers and sellers, all in one place, if that makes sense. So, you know it's all about wanting that initial let's start engaging our audience.

Allan 00:05:38

Let's start, you know, engaging and pushing them to the right sources, and kind of actions that we'd like for them to accomplish. in terms of understanding kind of what TTT  is. Fast forward to the day. You know we've had the web for, you know, a handful of years now.

Allan 00:06:01

So we've gotten and built, you know, that audience that thought it was mentioning, now, a lot of that is really refining our campaigns and adjusting to our different types of buyers, audiences. And also I've done, we have a lot of different new products featured on our platform, such as job, so our audience base is growing.

Allan 00:06:23

So that type of conversion engagement also needs to grow. So I hope that kind of gives you a little bit of, you know, clarity.

Erik 00:06:36

I have some great notes here.

John 00:06:40

Can I just, piggyback off on what Allan was saying?

Erik 00:06:43

Yeah. John.

John 00:06:44

We founded this in late 16, 2016. Took me about two years to raise money, build the product and, more importantly, than just build a product, but we took our time to build a platform and a product people wanted to use and then also wanted to use to help solve their problems, either on the south side by side.

John 00:07:12

And once we started to get close on a minimuml viable product, then we had to test that product. So what we learned is that it took quite a long time to crack the code on driving traffic into the product we built to properly test and validate, where we are today. here we are in, you know, 20, 24.

John 00:07:37

You know, we're moving really from startup mode to just scaling a rapid. We'll four time sales this year over the prior year. And we plan to 4x again next year and probably two and a half times x revenue in 25 to 26. So we're in scale mode right now. and as we got things right on the product, whether it's buy, sell or jobs or news, you know, now it's about conversion.

John 00:08:11

And this is where Justuno comes in and in our utilization of your service. Allan is correct. Allan brought it in four years ago. He said, listen, we have to have this. We have to have your service. Quite frankly, we didn't do a very good job utilizing it. but now that we're in scale mode, now that we have the traffic coming in, you know, we had to top grade our services and our partnerships to be able to really, engage those new visitors, those new registered users.

John 00:08:40

So, also to just to clarify what Allan was saying, he's right. Consumer trucking is about seven years behind consumer auto. Right? Consumer auto is about seven years ahead of commercial trucking, not only in, technology as far as clean fuels and, you know, automation. Our, you know, automated driving, autonomous, and also the conversion to electric or hydrogen or, any other clean, fuels.

John 00:09:15

but really in the buying and selling of, of used assets. So we, to be inspired by, the market, all we have to do simply is look at what carbon is doing.

Erik 00:09:27

And I've written Carvana down twice in my notes here.

John 00:09:30

Yeah. So. And people, people right away analogize and put us in the Carvana bucket, which is very flattering. we are the exception really, I think to Carvana, the number one that's consumer auto. but if you're listening, you know, Ernie Garcia, if you want to pay $100 million for us, I would crack that deal today.

John 00:09:53

and Ernie Garcia, junior and senior are both the founders and CEO. It's a public company today. But, you know, Ernie Garcia, junior is the CEO. So, Ernie, if you're listening, you know, we'll we'll accept your offer. but really, we don't we don't own the asset. Our sellers own the asset. We're brought in to facilitate that trade, whether it's them using our, our, self-service tools that we've built and, and, clearly, they can list their assets for sale.

John 00:10:26

They can field their own, offers because our buyers are well-trained and well-versed to place offers on our site. And we built a negotiation tool to allow buyers and sellers to deal directly. Now we are observing this. We're facilitating it. some say we favor the buyers. Other people say we're in favor of the sellers. Quite honestly.

John 00:10:50

you know, the buyers and sellers, and 99.99% of the time arrive at a win-win. and we're just here trying to create, the platform for them to do that. So we don't own the asset. And that's one of the distinctive differences between us and Carvana. That said, everything else we can do.

Erik 00:11:11

So let's talk about sales. Yeah. Conversion. Where are we today with Justuno with conversion, as a whole, we've seen customer acquisition costs increase. we've seen finally a focus on the on-site experience as a key aspect of our business and sustainable growth and scaling. congratulations on driving the traffic.

Erik 00:11:41

That's huge. The, community aspect. I love, we built a, see our snowboard based off of a community of snowboarders, people who were passionate about something. the the questions, you know, keywords are being use audience, segment campaigns, buyers conversion. one analogy we're using right now is this concept of digital marketers have figured out the offsite marketing component.

Erik 00:12:17

We know how to build segments. We know how to build campaigns. We know how to build automation to drive those that speak to those segments with personalized messaging. We are now introducing that to the on-site experience. So is what I hear from you when you talk about your segments, coming to your website, it sounds like you have a buyer visitor, someone who's looking to sell.

Erik 00:12:45

Yeah. and someone's coming to do some research. Potentially. I have the new jobs section.

John 00:12:52

Well, when the job section, there might be, large carriers or fleets looking for new drivers, looking for technicians, looking for salespeople, and management. but on the other side, because our jobs portal is also two-sided, you have employers and you have job seekers, right? so but it's it's within the trucking community. Right. So, so we one good thing is we did was we focused on a segment of the trucking community.

John 00:13:30

Yeah. Tracking transportation, and logistics. That's a great thing to focus. The challenging thing is that it's transportation, trucking, and logistics. you know, that those SIC code, that industry code, that industry segment is 24% of the world's gross domestic product. So the market is absolutely enormous. So we are constantly struggling to filter and gate to get a manageable view within that enormous market, even a small percentage of that big number is still a big number, right?

John 00:14:13

So conversion and having automation and tools is not just, important. It's essential. Yeah. It's essential to us. If not, we as a 100% digital e-commerce platform, there's no way out. We can't survive, because the market size and the activity is so large, because what you're doing, you're taking a business that is traditional brick and mortar.

John 00:14:41

Been in business for over 100 years, one of the largest businesses in the United States. you know, the trucking industry, it's about one-tenth the size of the automotive consumer, automotive business, but still a very, very large, market addressable market. But it's tough because there's so much opportunity. So you have to narrow your focus down and pick partners, like, like you guys to help us, convert and and get to those ideal customers, buyers, or sellers.

Erik 00:15:18:15 - 00:15:39:21

So let's talk metrics. we'll, we'll get back to the personas because what I'm thinking is when someone comes to your site, I initially want to ask them the question, are you a buyer? Sellers, are interested in in jobs. And when they click that button, we can save that profile to the save that data, to the profile to that next time they visit.

Erik 00:15:39

Or you can then email them to certain segments, when you're doing that, we recognize that when it comes to email marketing and SMS marketing, and Klaviyo just announced their top four workflows that are most successful and number one being their cart abandonment workflow. Yeah, that's going to be more for more traditional retailers as years more of the SAS marketplace.

Erik 00:16:05

But the whole point of everything is that what's the 8020 rule? As you I'm sure you're well aware of, John. And businesses like where's the low-hanging fruit? When I'm looking at your domain, trucktractortrailer.com, TTT as you as you like to be called in the industry.

Erik 00:16:31

if we're going to get that 4x, where's the low-hanging fruit? what segments are those and are we talking to them when they arrive on the site?

John 00:16:45:00 - 00:16:50:16

Allan that's a great one for you because you handle our enterprise-level customers.

Allan 00:16:50

Yeah. I think, you know, for us our subscription and listings are up to our dealer. That's our bread and butter right there. That's our low-hanging fruit. you know, that's really where, a lot of the market, a lot of people know that the used trucking market is about 80, 60 to 70%, of, of the trucking market.

Allan 00:17:15

so a lot more used being told, than used being bought. you know, so, for us, it's all about getting our buyers, our audience through the website, and then converting them to either self-serve, and lift their unit, or speak with someone from the team to get them on a dealer description or, you know, depending on location, you know, a number of, a block, etc.

Erik  00:17:45

So if I go to buy and how to buy, is that what's been described to me?

Allan 00:17:54

If they had to sell.

Erik 00:17:56

If they had to sell. So 60 to 70% of your website traffic or business sales comes from dealers coming on to list their inventory. Did I understand correctly?

Allan 00:18:13

the 70% is saying that the used trucking market in terms of unit selling in terms of units selling is larger than the new truck market. So our platform, you know, as we were mentioning, is really to attract a lot of the individual owner-operators, the dealers to list their equipment, for sale.

John 00:18:40

And, Eric, I think that it's important to note that where we've been and where we are today is not where the market's going. So when we started TTT, built the platform, we thought there would be faster, quicker adoption. And this is like back in 2018, 2019 when we started. But we had to wait post-Covid for people to really embrace zoom, and doing business online, Amazon itself just, you know, doubled since, you know, before Covid.

John 00:19:25

I think a lot of your e-commerce platforms, while people were shopping online, they weren't buying online. We're starting to see the early green shoots of that conversion where people are actually coming in, making more offers, and doing business online. But full disclosure here, you know, there's a lot of, you know, we use our platform now to attract deals.

John 00:19:49:17 - 00:20:20:21

But a lot of those deals, I think to your point, earlier you said off-site, a lot of the deals are transacted off-site. Now in a future state, let's say two years, three years out with AI and ChatGPT, other conversion tools, and UX tools to heighten the buying, the buying and selling experience, and also market familiarity and comfort and doing business online for a used asset.

John 00:20:20

It's going to be a spike north. It's going to be a hockey stick growth we feel in conversion. But right now where we are, if we're asking your customer base, you're following in my following year to go visit trucktractortrailer.com. They may be underwhelmed with the user experience

John 00:20:45

in compared in comparison to let's say, others that are you know, available maybe on the Shopify platform or Amazon or Walmart.com or some of the the niche market sites, traditional retail. However, in the commercial trucking site, Allen said it earlier, we're pretty unique and special, so we're out ahead of it. But compared to the rest of the e-commerce market, an outsider coming in may feel like we are behind.

John 00:21:16

And in fact, they'd be right. So, you know, I don't want to mislead the viewer that we're so far ahead. We're really not, in the trucking world, we are, we're slightly ahead of the competition. But, we do feel things will start to accelerate this point forward.