FREDERICK, MD. The economic downturn is exacting a price on truck dealers, but at least one is adjusting his tactics to make it through these tough times. 

Selling and servicing trucks is nothing new to Jack Saum Sr. A veteran salesman for the International Harvester, the predecessor of today’s Navistar, Saum joined truck dealership Beltway International in Baltimore in 1983 as sales manager. In 1997, he purchased Beltway from then-owner Jack Murray and set about expanding the enterprise, adding seven other dealership locations from Western Maryland and West Virginia to Delaware. He now sells selling Navistar International trucks as well as Kalmar-Ottawa and Jerr-Dan equipment.

Saum views today’s truck market as the toughest he’s ever seen, and it’s forcing dealers like himself to try different approaches. “If you keep doing the same things you’ve done the last two years, you simply won’t survive,” he told FleetOwner. “Now is the time when good managers and new tactics are coming into play. It just can’t be business as usual anymore.”

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