- [Caleb Ostrander] Hi there.
Welcome to this month's high bar university class alongside
Rick Swanson, director of training.
I'm Caleb Ostrander with the high bar brands marketing
department, and Rick, this month,
we're talking about minimizer and the original, poly fender.
- [Rick Swanson] The original poly fender.
- [Caleb Ostrander] We literally invented it back in 1984,
and I think it's safe to say it.
It has stood the test of time.
- [Rick Swanson] It has gotten us to where we are today,
for sure. And has allowed us
to go in many different directions as well.
So we're very thankful for everything that poly fenders
has done for us.
And obviously the customers that have supported us during
the year, but it's October.
- It's October Halloween.
- Yes. Yeah. (laughter)
The one time a month where I looked actually normally right,
one day a year, I finally look fairly normal.
It scares the kids.
- It does.
- Yeah.
- I'm kind of terrified to be sitting just a few feet from
you, but you know, we'll make, do.
- Right, I hope this,
would be the third year in a row where I win the
costume contest and I never trust. And I've never dressed.
- Well, maybe you can dress up as a,
as a director of training, which you are,
maybe educate us about the, the,
- [Caleb Ostrander] not only the minimizer fender line,
of course, but competitor products as well,
because you know,
let's say I'm, I'm an end-user.
I walk into a distributor and I say, all right,
I need some fenders from my truck.
- Sure.
- What are the options? And you know, why am I here?
- Minimizer, That's the only option.
(laughter)
- That's the only one.
- Right. I didn't even know there was
a competition out there, but sure.
There's other competition.
I think you need to kind of break that down into a couple of
different things. First of all, the material, okay.
there are other cheap poly or plastic fenders out there.
And then there are other materials that are being utilized
as well. Whether it's stainless steel or aluminum,
you got your fiberglass fenders out there.
So first of all,
kind of talking about the differences there,
when you're talking about us over a lot of the metal
competition. So let's take stainless steel,
which is one of the most popular options outside of kind of
poly world.
Yeah. Trucking is a generational type of industry.
And a lot of people are involved with trucking because their
parents were truck drivers and their parents are truck
drivers and their parents rode horses before.
(horse neighing)
But stainless steel has been around since the beginning and
because their parents drove a Peterbilt,
they typically drive a Peterbilt or a Mac and a Mac,
whatever the case is, it goes,
it goes with the materials as well.
We need to educate people on the differences and why maybe
they should go away from that stainless steel. First of all,
the weight difference is dramatic.
And so when you're selling an accessory line like minimizer
- [Rick Swanson] and, and poly fenders and
fenders in general,
it's really kind of seen as an expense sometimes because
it's an accessory, right.
But really it's an investment, right?
And when you go to a minimizer vendor,
which is saving you weight,
that means that there's more weight that you can put into
the payload, which puts money into your pocket.
- [Caleb Ostrander] Right? Absolutely.
- Obviously, with vendors in general,
you're going to have cost savings as far as the,
the cleaning of the truck and the maintenance of that truck,
the resell value of the vehicle as well.
So all great reasons as to why to protect your truck with
using fenders.
Also over stainless steel,
you have vibration a lot of vibration going up and down the
road. And a lot of people think that maybe the,
the biggest downfall of a metal fender would be those big
impacts. And, you know, if you get into, you know,
something hits them or whatever the case is that they won't
go back to its original shape, which is very true.
But really the wear and tear comes from just the hundreds of
thousands of miles that people are putting onto their trucks
and metal disperses vibration, right.
It's why in the back of an orchestra,
you've got that gong back, there made out of metal,
it resonates,
and you can hear that vibration throughout the entire hall,
right?
You're not going to put a rubber maid garbage can lid back
there and pound on that thing. Right.
Because it's a very blunt force, right.
Because it's, it's, it's absorbing that vibration.
- [Rick Swanson] And that's why, again,
minimizer vendors to come with a lifetime guarantee.
- [Caleb Ostrander] Yes. And we've tried
to show that obviously.
through the years, when you go back to our proving grounds,
video tested and tortured video, I mean,
there's a reason that that is our mantra.
- [Rick Swanson] Right? Other materials, aluminum,
really kind of talking to the buck cheap, right.
I mean, they're inexpensive,
but that's exactly what you're going to get.
You're going to get a, you're going to get a fender
That's going to last a very short period of time,
very difficult to clean and,
and a lot of issues that are going to go to leading in,
in downtime for your truck, which again,
you're not making money. Right.
- Right.
- Fiberglass looked great.
I had it. If I had a show truck,
maybe I'd put fiberglass on there.
Maybe I put minimizer silver mirror on as well.
So outside of looking great,
terrible to work with very expensive clunky, no,
no way of going there. Right?
- [Rick Swanson] So that, that puts you
to basically poly fenders, such as ours
or cheaper plastic fender,
which our competition typically provides.
- [Caleb Ostrander] And they're not the same.
- [Rick Swanson] They really aren't.
- [Caleb Ostrander] a minimizer and the competitors,
they're all the same, but they're really not.
- You open up a magazine,
you see an advertisement is probably minimizer in.
So we all kind of get lumped into that same category,
but there is a huge difference,
even if you can't visually tell the difference,
Because you don't deal with him all the time,
but you talking about material.
- [Rick Swanson] First of all,
we have a proprietary material that we've perfected over the
last 35 plus years.
And that material is going to last you a lifetime.
- [Caleb Ostrander] Right.
- [Rick Swanson] And our competition is, did not so much.
Right. I mean, it's a polypropylene product objects.
- Yeah.
- Injection mold instead of thermal form have a very limited
warranty, maybe 30 to 60 days.
So if you get the fenders and they're in okay. Shape,
you're kind of on your own after that.
- Right.
- Minimizer, That's obviously not the case, the, the,
- [Rick Swanson] the different options
that we have to choose from as well. I mean,
we have a different style for every single application
that's out there, whether it's a, a single axle fender,
a tandem-axle fender, half fender, triple axle tank,
or fender lift axle, you name it.
- [Caleb Ostrander] Keep going
I'm just going to let you roll.
- [Rick Swanson] Absolutely.
We could go on all day. Right.
And then the, the color options as well.
I mean, I'm going to get, we have about 12 total, I believe.
Yeah. Right.
Whether it's our standard colors or,
or special paint film options as well with the liquid,
Playdium the carbon fiber,
the silver and smoky black mirror,
lots and lots to choose from when it comes to fenders.
And really it begins, and it ends with minimizer.
- Now, if I want to buy, how do I go about it?
- Get out your wallet, right?
- [Rick Swanson] No, you're the ones that are selling this.
And so all they need to do is,
is contact you the distributor.
You can contact our customer service team to,
to place that order or your local territory manager.
And it's off to the races.
- Absolutely.
Rick, thanks so much.
- It's always a pleasure.