Seeing Clearly Matters with Clear Plus
Learn about how the long line of wiper blades from Clear Plus helps fleets see better.
Episode 198: We are in Orlando, Florida at HDA Truck Pride’s Annual Meeting. In this episode, we got to talk with Clear Plus about their wide range of wiper blades, and the importance of going with a quality blade.
My guest today is Raj Chawla the CEO and Founder of Clear Plus.
Guest Website: ClearPlus.com
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Transcript of Episode:
Jamie Irvine:
You’re listening to The Heavy-Duty Parts Report. I’m your host, Jamie Irvine. And this is the show where you get expert advice about heavy-duty parts that keep trucks and trailers on the road longer while lowering cost-per- mile. We’re at HDA Truck Pride’s Annual Meeting in Orlando, Florida, and we are here in the Clear Plus booth I’m with Raj Chawla, the CEO and Founder of Clear Plus. Raj, thank you so much for being on The Heavy-Duty Parts Report. So glad to have you here.
Raj Chawla:
Jamie, thank you very much. And thank you for giving this opportunity.
Jamie Irvine:
Well, I’m excited to talk to you. So we’re here at HDA Truck Pride’s Annual Meeting. This is a group of independent parts distributors and repair shops, the independent service channel. I like to think of them as the heart of the independent service channel. What products have you been sharing with the members as they’ve been coming by your booth?
Raj Chawla:
So Jamie, we are actually a single product category company and for the last 20 years we’ve been focused on wiper blades only. So we try to stay ahead of the curve in terms of whatever’s happening in the category. And so here we are featuring from conventional metal blades to the hybrid blades, to the beam blades, to the specialty heavy-duty blades to even the rear blades for automotive.
Jamie Irvine:
Right. So since you’re a single category company, have you ever heard of an acronym FOCUS, follow one course until success?
Raj Chawla:
That’s kind of what we have really taken the path and you know, customers appreciate that because there’s a lot of aftermarket participants in wiper blades, but they don’t really have the domain expertise or the distribution segment expertise. And that’s where we carve our niche and, in training, incremental revenue channels for our distributors, et cetera. So yes, that has served us very well actually.
Jamie Irvine:
So when I was a Sales Account Manager and I was selling heavy-duty parts, I was always looking for ways to sell them more product, but not just to throw product at them, but to solve some problems. And certainly, you’ve got your over the road, kind of what people would think of with some of the larger fleets. But I always worked in areas where there was a lot of vocations, it’s gotta be with your product range, that’s probably where you zero in on certain vocations and certain applications and say, Hey, we’ve solved a real problem. Could you give us a couple examples?
Raj Chawla:
Absolutely. Um, so right here at this show, we’ve had at least 10 15 discussions where we’ve given this cross pollination idea to distributors who somehow are, you know, more narrowly focused just on class eight vehicles. And we share with them the coverage we have for not just commercial vehicles in all classes, but also the motor code segment or also the transit segment, or the school bus segment. And these are RV segment. And so, you know, as a company, we have wiper blades, that go in size from eight inches to like 40 inches in length. And wow, about 36 in my last count, about 36 different connection systems. So with that, we basically cover practically 98% of any type of vehicle or equipment in the country. Okay. So this can be used in their existing sales channels, or if they’re motivated in additional sales channels, if they want to go after incremental revenue. So and then some of them take that same thing and explore the ag segment, the construction industry, cement mixers, and what have you. So there really is a lot of cross pollination in sales with the fleets.
Jamie Irvine:
That makes a lot of sense. So maybe from the actual end user of your product’s perspective, like what things or questions should they be asking when they’re like, okay, I need to replace my wiper blades. What kinds of things should they be thinking about to make sure they get the right product?
Raj Chawla:
So that’s also a great question. It’s the category in general for fleets happens to be a safety and a maintenance item. So the best thing that our customers can do in educating their customers is that for a low value threshold, which wiper blades typically in comparison to brakes or drums…
Jamie Irvine:
Or a transmission or an engine.
Raj Chawla:
That they should encourage replacements with preventive maintenance schedules and that way, you know, safety is priceless now while we value the costs and efficiencies for our customers, which are typically the fleets in this channel here, we really encourage to talk value of safety and timely replacements. Which helps everybody involved, including the guy who’s driving that equipment or the gal who’s driving that equipment. That’s kind of what we lead our customers to, you know, train the sales people to encourage and ask.
Jamie Irvine:
So I lived in Vancouver where we had mountains all around us, but whether you’re, you know, maybe leaving Colorado or heading towards Colorado, the last thing you want to do is be going up a mountain, getting hit with sleet and snow. You start at the beginning of the day, it was nice and warm. And then all of a sudden you can’t see out your windshield and now a load is late because of a windshield wiper blade, like change your wiper blades, right?
Raj Chawla:
Yes, we encourage doing that.
Jamie Irvine:
Not just so that you have more sales, but for safety.
Raj Chawla:
Yes. And you know, like we were saying before, really that’s priceless. And in terms of the value of what the wiper blades entails, it’s a must as a preventive maintenance item. But if everybody were to follow that our category would be about three or four times the size that it is, but we keep trying and, you know, and then we are seeing better results. People are buying the higher value products more and more. Fleets, the good fleets are certainly subscribing to the theory where they change wiper blades twice a year et cetera. So those are great opportunities for our distribution.
Jamie Irvine:
Fantastic. We’re gonna take a quick break. We’ll be right back. Don’t have a heavy-duty part number and need to look up a part? Go to parts.diesel laptops.com or download the app on Apple or Android to create your free account. Looking for high-quality fuel injection for heavy-duty applications? Having one supplier for fuel injection allows you to better serve customers by providing them with a complete line, which increases your sales and profitability. Learn more at ambacinternational.com/aftermarket. We’re back from our break. And before the break, we were talking about your great product. You’re very focused and that’s fantastic. Let’s shift gears a little bit. We’re here at HDA Truck Pride’s Annual Meeting. We’re surrounded by entrepreneurial independent companies. They’re distributors, they’re repairing the commercial sector and focusing on commercial equipment. What do you see as, with the challenges we’ve had over the last couple years, like, what steps did you take as a company to try to step up and help them?
Raj Chawla:
I think the biggest challenge that the independents face is really, what the OEs are trying to protect them from doing, which is the right to repair. Right. And I personally, I want to be more vested in that, the more I find out the threats of that to the independents and I’ll encourage anybody watching this, please go to carcare.org, register for that initiative, and then let your legislators know locally how important it is to keep the industry alive and for everybody at the consumer level to keep the cost down. So that’s one big thing, I think. Then the other thing that comes to mind is that everybody’s talking about how it’s so hard to find technicians, or people to work the counters and our industry is generally losing the panache if you may, of attracting the right talent. And I think that’s a challenge that needs to be overcome somehow.
Jamie Irvine:
We can all, we just have to all do our little part, right? Okay. Well, let’s close our conversation on this note. There’s a lot of problems out there. We could talk about those all day long. Is there anything that gives you real optimism looking forward?
Raj Chawla:
Oh, in this industry? Absolutely. I mean, I am blessed to in this industry, because with everything that happened during the pandemic, we stayed essential. We were open, trucks were being driven, more so than before, even if there was a little bit of loss on the demand side, on the passenger car segment. Internet economy has been a boom to our industry with more miles being driven on commercial vehicle delivery side, in all classes of vehicles. So personally I’m really thankful and very optimistic parts industry will always be alive.
Jamie Irvine:
You’ve been listening to The Heavy-Duty Parts Report. I’m your host, Jamie Irvine. And we’re with Raj from Clear Plus. If you’d like to learn more about their products, go to clearplus.com. Links are in the show notes. Raj, thanks for being on The Heavy-Duty Parts Report.
Raj Chawla:
Thank you.