Interview With James Martin: Co-Owner of Diamond Fleet Services

Dieselmatic’s account managers are always talking to our partners, checking metrics, performance, and how the shop is getting on—always in a professional capacity. That’s why we thought it would be fun to change gears, sit down with them for a more informal chat, and share the faces and stories behind these repair shops and what makes them tick.

So, join us in the first of a series of interviews with people in the heavy-duty repair industry, where I sat down with James Martin. Family man, serial entrepreneur, co-owner of Diamond Fleet Services, amateur pilot, and overall lovely guy.

After joking that he was “a little worried” and asking if there was “anything [he] should know the question to,” we kicked things off with a nice, easy one.

If you’re ready, can you introduce yourself?

I’m James Martin, co-owner of Diamond Fleet Service in Central Pennsylvania, and we started the shop to fix our own fleet of trucks. I’m also co-owner of Keystone Transport, which delivers furniture.

Happy days! So, how long have you been in the industry?

Well, I’ve been in transportation for 10 years and in the repair shop for 2.

I’m not a mechanic at all; you may not want to interview me. I’m an outlier. I enjoy starting businesses; it’s tough to keep them going, but starting them is fun.

If you’re not a mechanic, what made you want to go into the heavy-duty repair world?

Ok, so I was a fleet owner, and I knew the type of service I wanted for my trucks. We had decent shops around us, but, you know, there’s nothing like having your own to do your own scheduling. I always felt the lead time was too long, and that would disrupt our operations.

So when we opened up the shop, one of our focus points was ‘quick in, quick out.’ In other words, "Hey, you’d never wait more than two days to get your truck in our shop.” With the shops surrounding us, you wait a week, sometimes two weeks.

I just wanted to provide a service that I thought we could do better than our competitors.

How did you go about recruiting people for this shop? Did you know people in the industry already?

Let’s see, how did we start out? Oh yes, one of my friends was a mechanic, and I got him to help me get started; he went on to do other stuff after a year.

Then we just put ads out and recruited, and we’re fortunate enough to have some really good candidates. The first person I hired was the shop manager, and he knew two others that we hired as the team grew. It’s a younger crew, but yeah, they want to make it work.

How many people have you got working for you at Diamond Fleet?

Right now, there are three.

Three, so that's the shop manager and the two techs?

Yep, the shop manager is also a tech.

I also have a COO who oversees the shop. So, I’m not overseeing it on a day-to-day basis. The COO is actually running the transport company and the shop.

So they’re a very busy person, then. And where do you fit into this?

Haha, they are indeed.

Well, my role is finance, with some sales and marketing.

So you’re more of a business guy?

Yeah, that’s me. I’m a numbers guy. I don’t want to work with people, haha.

No, I’m joking, of course. I have a great team around me, and I wouldn’t be where I’m at without them. It’s all about them.

That transition from transportation into repairs—did you find that easy as they’re adjacent industries? Or did you run into more challenges than expected?

For me, it wasn’t difficult because I just hired people who were smarter than me in that world.

Hire the right people; they will make a world of difference. That’s the key to being successful. Surround yourself with the right people.

Well, it’s good that you all bring different elements to the business. With that in mind, are there any specialties within the team?

Well, we’re a general shop, but diagnostics of heavy-duty trucks is something we specialize in.

So, do you have all the types of software available for the different manufacturers?

We’ve got software that covers almost everything. We get it as needed. If a Volvo fleet comes in, we’ll get the software dedicated to them.

When you were setting up Diamond Fleet, did you find a location first? What were the first steps of the business?

I’ve been thinking about this for a number of years. I did not have the location for it. I looked around; I thought of brand-new spaces because, where we were working, we were maxed out.

Actually, I owned a manufacturing shop, and I had 50/60 employees making high-end furniture. So, I sold that in 2020, and we soon ran out of space. We were sharing the space with this manufacturing business.

I went and found a 12-acre property with multiple buildings, storage units, and tenants already there. I basically got into the commercial real estate space. So I renovated a building, and there was plenty of room, so we put the shop on one end.

It was a dream come true for me to have my own shop right there in the warehouse.

What would you say are the challenges of running a heavy-duty repair shop?

Right now, it could be the stage we’re at. We hired a third tech here last summer, and it was a little bit premature for the sales curve. So keeping productivity within the billable hours is what we’re focusing on right now.

So that's one side of it. The other side is that we’re a start-up shop. There are other shops in the area that have been there for decades.

How do you go to a fleet owner and say: “Hey, we’re starting up over here; bring your trucks to us?” And my techs are younger, so that doesn’t help the perception. They’re awesome, but there’s still a perception among some people that being younger doesn't mean you’re good.

So that’s probably the main challenge—breaking into the marketplace.

So, as a newer start-up with younger techs, how do you break into that market?

Well, I went out and dropped my card at the local fleets; I knew some of them already. We got some business through that quick turnaround [that we offer], and they liked that. Whereas the other shops would take about a week or two, that’s how we got our foot in the door.

By offering something your competition couldn’t.

Exactly. None of them have mobile road services, which is what we’re looking to put out later this year, hopefully.

I’m glad you brought that up. If you’re willing to share it with us, what are your upcoming plans?

Of course. We’re looking at implementing a mobile road service. This will target fleets that want on-site service.

At this point, we’re not doing the 24-hour roadside assistance thing. Just be mobile, go out, and fix something for one of our existing customers. Or go to their site and fix something for them.

Does this mean that you’re going to hire a specialist mobile tech or train up the guys you have?

We’re going to start out with the team we have. The last guy we hired, we hired him on the basis that he was willing to go out on a mobile unit. Eventually, we’ll have to hire for that position, though.

So, I’ve just got a few questions about your relationship with Dieselmatic. How did it all begin?

So we started the shop, got it going for about a year, and decided we were going to open it up to the public. We had already researched Fulbay and chosen that for our software. We had been using it for a year, and we knew they had a service that could market our services to the public [Dieslmatic], so we decided to give it a shot.

It was an easy decision for me because they were focused strictly on heavy-duty truck repair. The logic is, "Hey, if that’s all you do, you've gotta have a little bit of expertise in that realm.” I have two close friends who do website work and SEO; they would have done a great job with the website.

But it was probably the specialized niche, SEO knowledge, that made me want to go with Dieselmatic.

What particularly about the SEO aspect attracted you to Dieselmatic?

Ok, so at this point, I was always B2B. Yeah the repair shop is still B2B, but it’s getting closer to B2C and I felt I needed someone who had that expertise to get us started with SEO.

We were brand new, and nobody knew about us. How were we going to get our name out there? We’re along a fairly busy highway. Of course, we have a sign out, but it takes work to get people in.

You said you dropped off business cards at the start. Old-school marketing combined with modern digital channels.

Yeah, and I had to do that. I learned that small local fleets that we wanted weren't going online to look for a repair shop. They knew the players in their industry; they had their relationships; there was no way I’m gonna count on that to get business.

Yeah, I’ll get the person who’s broken down looking for a repair shop, but we wanted more than that. We wanted local fleets with 10 or more trucks, and there’s a bunch of those in the area. We’re working with two of them right now, and it’s going real good.

Perfect. Do you find most of your customers come from breakdowns and those passing through?

Let me think here. As a percentage, we’re probably 60/40. 60% are the local fleets, and 40% are passers-through.

We want that steady-eddie repeat business. That’s our goal. We want the other stuff as well, but the local work is a steady income and part of our community.

What has Dieselmatic helped you with the most?

There was an evolution in our relationship. I took a set-it-and-forget-it approach; we got everything set up, and I moved on to something else. Because of that, we weren’t getting the results we wanted.

I woke up to that and realized I had to be more involved. So now I have a weekly call with Matt [Diamond Fleet’s account manager] to review the numbers. What are we doing, and what do we need to tweak? This is stuff I should have been doing all along.

I needed to be more involved, I guess, to help the process along. To be more involved with Diamond Fleet, take it where I want it to go.

These weekly calls give me a sense of what's going on, whether we need to change anything, etc. It was probably the best thing we could have done.

In terms of bringing in business, it gave us huge awareness within the marketplace. We’re a brand new shop, and it helped let people know that we’re around. It really helped us get off the ground in a noticeable way.

What do you like the most about Dieselmatic?

The dashboard. The data—like I said, I’m a numbers guy—makes it easy and understandable.

And the ROI. Having a good sense of where your money is going and what it’s turning into. The phone calls are recorded, so you can go back and see what we’ve discussed.

It gives you the tools at your fingertips to really drill into things.

Would you recommend Dieselmatic to other heavy-duty repair shops?

Yes, I would.

I would, because they’re niche. Anybody can put up a website. Anybody can do SEO.

But if you go to someone who knows the industry—someone who has a database of customers and knows what's working and what’s not—I think that helps me succeed quicker than using just a generic website/SEO company.

It’s built specifically for the industry that I’m targeting. They have the knowledge, the input, and the results that I’m looking for.

What’s the most rewarding thing about owning a repair shop?

I’ll share this from my perspective because I’m not a mechanic, and I rely on mechanics to fix my stuff. I appreciate the people who have the skills to take something that isn’t working and make it work again.

But for me, it’s probably the satisfaction of helping people.

Now for our final question. If you could give one piece of advice for heavy-duty repair shop owners, what would it be?

Know your costs and know your numbers. I know that’s quite generic, but it’s that.

Having an attitude of learning as well. Constantly involving yourself and developing. Once you think you know it all, then you’re finished.

One Last Thing…

And that's a wrap on our first ever interview in this series! A huge thanks to James for sitting down with us and telling us all the ins and outs of running a successful repair shop and how we at Dieselmatic have been a part of that.

If you think that your shop can be the next Dieselmatic success story, then we'd love to hear from you. With our data-driven insights and growth-measuring tools at your fingertips, managing your shop has never been easier. More customers, increased revenue, and maximizing profits are just one click away!

Ready to transform how your shop operates? Join Dieselmatic today and see how we make your growth our mission—book your free demo now!