(whooshing)
- Hi there,
welcome to this month's High Bar University class.
I'm Caleb Ostrander alongside Rick Swanson,
and, are we bothering you, sir?
I mean, you got the invite to the calendar event.
We're rolling right now.
Are we interrupting something?
I mean, I don't know what's going on.
Do you have an addiction to your phone or something?
What are you looking at?
- What, what?
- (laughs) Do you have those invisible ear buds in?
Are you, you didn't even hear anything I just said.
- (laughs) I don't, I'm sorry.
No, I was on the resource site.
I was just watching a new video here, so--
- We did just upload some new videos.
- I hadn't seen, yeah, no, I hadn't seen this, so
anyways, yeah, no, I'm sorry. (laughs)
You're like oh. (both laugh)
- Well, that's a good topic.
Why don't we just hit on the training site resource site
with the new video content and everything that that entails?
- Sure, oh, absolutely.
I mean, do I even need to be here for this?
- (laughs) No, you can go.
- I mean, this is kind of your baby.
- All right, let's do it right now.
Let's see how fast I can get through this. (laughs)
- I mean, I understand that usually I'm here
to kinda help train people,
but I mean, this is your baby here
so maybe you should take over on things and...
- Well, let's see, I'm trying to think.
I've been with Minimizer, High Bar brands, Premier
now for
six years, seven, no, eight years, eight years.
- Eight years.
- And we've built out a good quality video library,
well I think it's a good quality video library
with a lot of different things.
Because we've got product videos,
we've got installation, instructional videos,
we got testimonial videos.
Anything that you might need, I hope is up there.
And if it's not, email me and let me know.
We'll do something.
- It's all very product-specific to 'em
on the training resource site
and probably the first thing that we should do
is put up the training resource site.
(laughs)
What do you think?
- Go for it.
- There, there it is, right there for you.
So you'll see on the videos tab,
and then you'll right there see all of the,
just the general branding videos that we have
to offer.
I mean, whether it's about new part numbers,
I mean that's obviously, you know,
a thing that a lot of the distributors
are dealing with right now,
is just kind of understanding, you know,
how that new part number system works,
the TV kiosk to, you know, other general videos.
Go over to our fenders section
and you can see our videos on our standard fenders,
our super single fenders, installation videos.
I mean nobody wants to look and--
- Read a bunch of text. (laughs)
- Read through an instant,
you know, especially guys.
Guys don't read at all.
But to watch a video--
- I feel like people always learn better.
- I mean, it becomes much easier
because sometimes, yeah--
- By watching.
- Yeah, you can just kinda visually see
as to how things work.
And great testimonial videos
and instructional videos, too,
like, I mean, how to chain up for the winter.
- [Caleb] That might be my favorite
because even if you have a customer
that doesn't run Minimizer fenders,
we hope they do, but if they don't,
anyone can use this video to chain up.
Makes it look so easy and it really easy,
so it's a valuable resource for anybody
that drives a truck.
- [Rick] You know, you head over to our floor mats,
you have great feature videos there
and you know, probably my favorite testimonial video,
really, I mean, the business case for Minimizer--
- You just wanna show it?
- Well, yeah.
- Let's just do it.
- Yeah, let's just go ahead and show that video.
- Queue it up, sir.
(scratching cacophony)
(upbeat instrumental music)
- Two issues that we experience every day.
In our industry, you got some driver turnover
and given that, we have to, from time to time,
detail out the interior of the truck.
So my first thought was obviously
the floor of the truck's always dirty.
We can remove the mats from the floor,
but I'm gonna wash her out, take a pressure washer,
clean 'em up, takes about 30 seconds.
They're indestructible, they're perfectly clean,
hang 'em up on the wall to dry for two minutes,
put 'em back in the interior of the truck,
and I've got a clean floor again.
And really the second factor was,
was just wear on the floor.
Drivers have always got cowboy boots or boots on.
By putting floor mats down,
that eliminates the wear on the floor,
no more holes in floor mats,
and it makes cleaning the interior of the truck
just infinitely easier.
(upbeat instrumental music)
Let's talk about the life cycle of the truck
at our company,
being somewhere between 48 and 60 months,
depending on market conditions.
Over the course of 4 to 5 years,
you could have as many as eight or 10 drivers,
so I've gotta clean the interior of the truck
completely up maybe eight to 10 times.
If it saves me two hours a time every time,
and it does, then pick a shop rate,
call it $60 an hour for a detail shop,
then you got $600 worth of time
that the truck doesn't have to sit in there
with somebody scrubbing the floor.
And I'm sure that over a 48 to 60 month period
we'd go through one mat per truck.
And I think the acquisition cost for the mat
is somewhere in the $200 to $225 range,
and I got about six hours of labor to put that in.
So take the two and couple 'em together,
probably save me $1000 per truck
over the life of the truck.
So the bottom line is
when you look at the price of the floor mat
and you look at the time savings
for cleaning the truck
and the time savings and expense savings
for not having to replace floor mats,
pretty much a no-brainer.
- And I think that video,
you mentioned it might be your favorite,
I think it shows the value of Minimizer floor mats
and what fleets feel about the product out there.
- For sure, and especially for, you know,
the sales guys out there, as well.
I mean, if I was on a fleet call or whatever the case is
and they were talking about floor mats,
there's a one-click send to customer button right there
for you, and you can,
all you have to do is just click that button,
put in the email address,
puts it already into the body of the email,
and you're off and running.
I mean, you know, that not only shows
that follow up, but then also, you know,
maybe he just grabbed a little bit more information
about that product that'll actually close that sale.
- [Caleb] Without a doubt.
And we've spent a lot of time recently
updating our video library with a lot of French
and Spanish videos, we don't wanna leave out our friends
up in Quebec or down in Mexico.
And then, Premier, of course,
we can't forget about Premier.
Premier manufacturing has a ton of videos out there
on our innovation, on obviously our product lines,
and it's something that we continue to expand to this day.
- You know, with Premier being such a technical product,
you know, it really is nice to have those visual aids,
again, I mean, whether it's,
you know, just how to pick out coupling information,
you know, and actual coupling for your application,
that's another great video.
I mean--
- You wanna just queue that one up, too?
- Why not watch that one too? (both laugh)
I've been watching so many videos today.
What's one more, right?
- Why not?
Let's do it.
- Bring it on.
(jagged instrumental music)
- [Narrator] To choose the correct Premier couplings
and drawbar eyes,
you must first determine the gross trailer weight,
which is usually determined
by the gross vehicle weight rating
attached to the trailer by the manufacturer.
For double trailers, only the rear trailer
is considered when selecting your Premier coupling
or drawbar eye.
While for triple trailers,
only the two most rearward trailers are considered.
The second step is determining the tongue weight capacity,
which is the maximum expected weight at the drawbar eye.
If a hinge drawbar is used, the maximum weight
will be approximately 1/2 the overall drawbar weight.
If a non-hinged drawbar is used
and the actual tongue weight is unknown,
you can approximate the weight
by multiplying the gross vehicle weight gradient
of the total trailer by 15%.
However, best practice is to weigh the tongue
when the trailer is loaded to its GVW op.
The third step is considering your operating conditions
and environment.
In general, increasing the gross trailer weight
from step on and the tongue weight capacity from step two
by a minimum of 25% will be sufficient
for many applications.
However, each application is unique
and every environment different.
Therefore, your application may require
more than 25%.
Once both gross trailer weight and tongue capacity weight
have been determined, evaluate your operating conditions
and apply and appropriate margin of safety.
The final step is to visit Premier's website
or browse pages four through eight of the catalog.
There, you can find cross reference charts
for coupling to drawbar eye pairings,
as well coupling to wear gauge numbers.
In addition, you can determine
if one of Premier's premium options,
such as Premalloy or Extended Life
are right for your application.
(upbeat instrumental music)
- And our most recent video on the Premier tab
under videos is our new silver series line,
which we just talked about last month.
We had that product innovation video,
up there on the training site, as well.
- [Rick] Right, and all of the other special features
that you have available within the Premier line,
whether it's the Saf-T-Latch, Extended Life,
Premalloy, and even the Saf-Tite product line still.
So it's equally important
for couplings to make sure that you maintain them properly,
as well, and there's a great video under, you know,
the couplings tab for the 2200 training.
And right there you'll see all of the steps
that you should take to make sure
that you're maintaining your hitch in the proper manner.
- [Caleb] And we also have a video
on how to change out the latch, too,
on a coupling, as well.
So a lot of those instructional videos
are there if you need a little more information
on the Premier couplings line.
- [Rick] And of course, your Spanish and French again.
- [Caleb] Yes, absolutely.
- So do you think that that's finally enough content
for these people?
- Probably not, no, no.
I think we need more.
- It's not enough. (both laugh)
All right.
What do we do if we want more videos, Caleb?
- I think we should go to YouTube.
We of course have YouTube channels
for Minimizer and Premier.
So if you just go to YouTube and search
Minimizer and Premier Manufacturing,
you're gonna find our channels with all of our videos,
and I do mean all, 'cause they all go up on YouTube.
- Right, so basically, anything that's going on
with High Bar brands, you can find on that YouTube page.
- Absolutely.
Well, we appreciate your time, thank you so much, sir.
- Always a pleasure.