Max Dull began his aftermarket career in 1979 as manager of an automotive repair facility. Since that modest beginning, he has been a general manager of an automotive warehouse distributor, a marketing manager, a product manager and has held a variety of management positions in logistics, global sourcing and distribution operations.
 
In 2003, Dull was appointed vice president of product management for Dana’s Under Hood Group, which included Echlin, Clevite, Beck/Arnley and Wix. That job entailed managing global sourcing and distribution operations in the United States, Japan, China, Taiwan, Hong Kong and Australia. In 2004, Dull was promoted to vice president and general manager for Beck/Arnley.
 
In 2005, Dull formed Heritage Equity Group and purchased Beck/Arnley, becoming the company’s president and CEO. After successfully restructuring Beck/Arnley, Dull and Heritage Equity Group sold the operation to Uni-Select, Inc., at which time, Dull returned to his role of vice president and general manager.  
In today's interview, Dull talks about Beck/Arnley's new line of fluids for foreign applications and provides his thoughts on the changes in the foreign nameplate market today.

With the growth of foreign nameplate vehicles, most domestic suppliers have expanded their product range to cover those vehicles. Has this in any way diminished the need for a full-line foreign nameplate brand like Beck/Arnley?

To the contrary, service and repair technicians in general have a markedly different set of product and brand preferences when working on foreign nameplate (Fnp) vehicles. This is particularly true of those that specialize in repairing foreign nameplate vehicles. They tend to prefer a brand that is associated with an OEM, with either the name of the make or the name of an established tier one supplier on the box.
 
Most major aftermarket suppliers have had decent coverage for foreign nameplate vehicles for quite some time. What it comes down to is this: You can have the right coverage and still not have the right parts. The people who service and repair today’s vehicles are very smart and they understand the direct relationship of time to money. Time spent chasing down an acceptable part or dealing with a comeback is very expensive, especially when they know they can trust Beck/Arnley to have the right part in the box every time.
 
In every brand awareness study among technicians that we’ve seen, Beck/Arnley comes across as one of the best-known brands for FNp parts across all product categories. While there are some brands that score higher in specific segments, no one compares across the range of products. We think this speaks to the faith and trust that technicians put in our ability to make sure they get the right part in the box every time.
 
Let me give you an example. There has been confusion in the marketplace about fluid specifications for foreign nameplate vehicles, especially coolants for Asian applications. The message from Asian OEMs is that their vehicles require proprietary fluids that have been available only from their dealerships. Turns out, this is true. They use different materials in their cooling systems that are, you might say, allergic to commonly used coolants. Many technicians have learned the hard way that this isn’t just marketing hype. At Beck/Arnley we saw it as a problem that needed to be fixed. We learned that there is one company that makes virtually all of the fluids for Asian vehicles. We worked out an agreement with them and now aftermarket practitioners no longer have to buy fluids from OE dealers. They can get genuine OEM fluids from Beck/Arnley. This is yet another example of always having the right parts.
 
You just mentioned that you hear about confusion technicians have regarding fluids for foreign nameplate vehicles, especially coolants for Asian applications, and that they are conflicted with information they hear from the OEMs and what they know about conventional aftermarket fluids. Please tell us about the new line of Beck/Arnley fluids and how perhaps you saw a need in the market that you were suited to fill?

Many FNp vehicles use metal and soft components in their cooling systems that are not compatible with the sort of “one size fits all” formulations that work well for our domestically designed vehicles. Use of the wrong coolant in many FNp vehicles will result in corrosion and premature failure. It’s just chemistry.

Until very recently the only place to procure the safe and proper fluids was from OE dealers, considered by virtually all aftermarket shops to be a major competitor. In other words, to do the right thing for their customers they had to support their competition. But now that we have been able to put together a deal with the OEM supplier, the aftermarket has an aftermarket source for the “proprietary” OEM fluids.
 
Is the problem just with coolants or are there similar issues with other systems that rely on fluids such as transmissions and steering?

The situation is similar but much more compelling for automatic transmission fluid. The wrong coolant slowly attacks the system and may not cause visible problems for several months. Use of the wrong ATF can lead to failure within days. Beck/Arnley’s Asian fluids program includes genuine OEM ATFs and power steering fluids.

Clearly, the marketplace for OEM foreign nameplate vehicles is in flux. As a leading supplier of products for foreign nameplate vehicles, how do you expect those changes to impact the North American market for parts over the next several years?

Polk, IMR, Experian, Lang…regardless of whose research you look to for guidance, the red thread running through all of it is a growing population of FNp vehicles. Plainly put, this means that having a range of products that are acceptable to technicians for FNp vehicles will be mission critical for those selling parts.
 
As I mentioned previously, the Beck/Arnley line is the most recognized brand of parts for FNp vehicles across a broad range of product categories. As parts sellers work to have a FNp product offering that technicians are comfortable with, they need look no further than Beck/Arnley.
 
To help make carrying Beck/Arnley as easy as possible for distributors, we are creating a program that WDs and jobbers can use to “indent” Beck/Arnley into their inventories. This will assure they have FNp coverage in a brand that is acceptable to the technician. At the same time, the indent program will assure their coverage is right for the vehicles in their trading area and it will minimize or eliminate duplication of coverage with their domestic suppliers. It's a real win/win situation.
 
Recent announcements by Beck/Arnley indicate that you have added a number of new sales and marketing professionals to the staff recently. Is this in reaction to, or in anticipation of, new growth for the company and/or changes in market dynamics?

Yes and yes. Beck/Arnley is in its third consecutive year of double-digit growth, and all factors point to another good year in 2012. I think Peter Drucker said that a successful manager doesn’t build a business; he builds an organization and the organization builds the business. Our growth over the past couple of years has been helpful not only for our bottom line, but for our strategic thinking. Looking at our actual sales from a market segmentation perspective has pointed us clearly in a direction for organizational growth – some of it to help with business we’ve already picked up, some of it anticipatory for groundwork we’ve laid.
 
Beck/Arnley expanded its activities in social media this year as well. It can be difficult to find the ROI in social media, so tell us, how's it going so far? What benefits do you see in being present on social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube?

Social media is a phenomenon we’re interested in using as another opportunity to foster favorable brand relationships with our customers. We believe it holds potential for building incremental brand awareness by creating a Beck/Arnley “personality.” It is a great forum for providing product information in a fun and entertaining environment.
 
We’ve placed special emphasis on our Beck/Arnley Facebook site this year. In fact, we were recently honored with an Automotive Communication Council award for the best customization of a Facebook site for the automotive aftermarket. We have not established a cause and effect relationship between social media and sales, but we do know that nearly half of our Facebook fans are technicians. Having another means to communicate with technicians and mine their knowledge base and attitudes has to be a good thing.
 
Another very valuable social medium we use is YouTube. It gives us a visual way to communicate about new products and provide short, informational videos and installation tips. The law of large numbers certainly suggests that social media can figure prominently in today’s brand-building efforts. When you consider that there are 750 million Facebook users and 490 million YouTube users, the wisdom of being involved is self-evident.
 
We're just coming off another successful AAPEX event, which took place early November in Las Vegas. How did the show go for Beck/Arnley?

Very well. The acceptance of Beck/Arnely and what we have to offer was heartening. We have a longstanding reputation for the quality of our parts. However, the number of people who were seeking us out because of the complement of support programs we have to offer was astonishing. Notable was the interest in the area of product and application data. It’s clear that the marketplace is valuing the quality of our data as much as they do our parts. We are excited about what the future holds.