TPM, The People Movers company, is directly involved with public transportation, although the company does not sell to the general public.
“We contract only through mass transit companies, the CTA, Metra, and Dart, which is in Dallas. We don’t sell much to the private customer,” Phillip Beckham of TPM tells rolling out. “The People Movers responds to rfps [requests for proposals] for groups such as the CTA, [Chicago Transit Authority]. When the CTA wants to replace buses, we sell those buses. I contract with a manufacturer out of China, and I’m their distributor for the United States. I am the only DBE [Disadvantaged Business Entityof this type] in the country.”
“I am the only black person who has a company like this in the country,” Beckham beams. “And there are only four others who sell these kinds of buses in the country.”
Rolling Out was compelled to find out more about The People Movers.
How did you get into the bus selling business?
My company has always been in transportation. We had a school bus company in 1965. My mom and dad had been in that forever, Beckham Transit, it’s still in Harvey, Illinois today. My brother and I bought it in 2000.
How did you land that Chinese connection?
I was on a trip in Senegal, Africa, on a summit about public transportation. I met the Chinese company Foton, and they expressed their interest in getting into the American market, and asked if I wanted to get into the distributor business.
Foton manufactures heavy equipment for road construction, cars, anything on wheels, they manufacture. They’ve been doing this for about 30 years, but the United States was the only market that they hadn’t been involved with at that time.
What kind of buses do you sell?
If the CTA is looking for alternative fuel buses, electrical buses and natural gas buses, we sell them. Pace serves the suburban area and they do have a bid out for 416 new buses and we’re bidding on that. We serve whatever the transportation entity wants, and their money comes from the federal government. The typical price of 40-foot transit bus the CTA has is $400,000-$500,000.
What is the most challenging aspect of your business?
The toughest part about my job is getting to the decision makers. Being a lifelong Chicagoan, I’ve known the decision makers in this network for quite some time. But when you go to other cities, like San Diego, San Francisco, and St. Louis, finding the [them] is difficult. This is a political business, this isn’t a sales business.
What is the process after you’ve received the RFP?
When we initially got going, the process was difficult because the bid bond requirement was so high. It was beyond what I could do and I couldn’t find investors to help assist with that bid bond cash.
An entity such as the CTA would make a distributor a guarantee that if my buses didn’t show up, or if they were defective, the CTA would take the money from the bid bond, which could be $2 million, to replenish their buses. The bid bond also proves that I have the ability to deliver.
How did you acquire funding for the bid bond?
It wasn’t until I pulled the race card: “You can’t do this, I’m the only black,” I said. So a couple of them have actually reduced the bid bond to one year of the total, instead of five years of the total. For the bid bond, you can get a $20 million deal, but I must have 5 percent for five years of the $20 million deal and it’s difficult for me to do that. But if it’s one-year at 5 percent of the 20 million, I can get that bid buy.
What was your expectation vs. experience from working with a Chinese company?
I didn’t expect it to be so fast, they understand the market, they understand what they want to do, and execute. They have no issue about me being brown, they don’t necessarily trust the history that they’ve had with typical American businessmen, and that’s why they’re in Africa.
What markets do you want to tap into now?
The African market is cash, they have a lot of cash, we get a lot of information which is untrue about Africa. The pockets of the starving and all, and they have literally rooms of cash. They want to develop and they want to do business with African American business people, male or female. Cuba is another market and in Chicago and the state of Illinois have kept such an open line of business with Cuba. Illinois has the only business commerce office in Cuba, and no other state does. That’s the next spot.
What did you think of the President Obama’s big black tour bus?
I wish I could have sold it to him!
Video: How to do Business with China
