Customers rarely call their fuel distributor to discuss chemistry. They call because a boiler has stopped, a filter is blocked, machinery has lost power or a tank contains something that does not look as it should.
That distinction was one of several valuable insights to emerge from a day at the FAST Academy in Atcham, Shropshire.
Hosted by additive producer FAST Exocet, the Academy has been designed as a small-group, day-long workshop bringing together technical fuel knowledge, laboratory and production insight, customer profiling and sales skills. The approach is practical and discussion-based rather than classroom theory.
Its purpose is to improve understanding of fuel and additives, give sales teams greater confidence and help distributors earn more from the litres they already deliver.
I attended alongside delegates from OilMaxx and Stoddards Fuels, who brought perspectives from sales, management and driving as well as very different lengths of industry experience.
The mix proved useful because successfully developing additive sales requires a consistent understanding across the business.
The day included fuel fundamentals, product applications, a laboratory visit, a tour of the warehouse and production operation, and an afternoon focused on customers and sales. It was a fun and interactive day, with quizzes, discussions and a fiercely competitive exercise involving the correct labelling and packing of an order.
The serious question beneath the activity was simple: why are additives still so often treated as a remedy rather than a preventative measure?
Fuel that “just works”
Scott Mace, who hosted the day and has spent 16 years with FAST Exocet, began with the ambition that additives should stop feeling like an upsell and start feeling essential.
That is quite a leap in an industry in which the buying conversation can quickly become concentrated on pennies per litre.
FAST’s approach is built around changing that mindset – and giving distributors the knowledge to explain why preventative treatment might matter.
Before getting into additives, we were taken back through the fuel journey from extraction through transportation, refining, storage and distribution. The important message was not the detail of the process, but what happens afterwards.
Fuel may leave the refinery clean and within specification, but storage, transportation, temperature variation and exposure to air, water and contaminants can all affect its subsequent behaviour.
“THE ADDITIVE MAY BE THE PRODUCT, BUT RELIABILITY IS THE PROPOSITION.”
It may then remain in a distributor’s storage before being delivered to the end user.
The discussion moved to what happens when fuel spends longer than expected in a customer’s tank.
It’s a question that is becoming more relevant as consumption patterns change. Better-insulated homes and more efficient boilers mean some domestic customers are using heating oil less rapidly, so fuel may remain in the tank longer. Similar challenges arise in seasonal industries. Following a poor harvest, for example, farmers may have surplus fuel and a much longer storage period than anticipated.
“Fuel condition can begin to change after it leaves the refinery, particularly during prolonged or unsuitable storage” was one of FAST’s recurring messages during the day.
For distributors, that raises an interesting point. Customers tend not to think about the life of their fuel until something changes. Scott made the observation that they do not generally report a chemical problem with their fuel. They report behaviour.
That is an important shift in language. The additive may be the product, but reliability is the proposition.
What the laboratory sees
The visit to FAST’s laboratory was probably one of the most useful parts of the day, in turning an invisible issue into something tangible.
Fuel samples sent to FAST are tested for issues including filter-blocking tendency, flashpoint, particle contamination, cold-temperature performance, water content and microbial contamination.
The three most common problems reported by the laboratory were biodiesel dropout, water contamination and diesel bug.
The samples themselves provided a persuasive visual reminder that “fuel problem” is a broad description rather than a diagnosis. Bugs, sludge, water, waxing and particulate contamination can produce similar customer complaints while requiring very different responses.
Sample quality also matters. The laboratory occasionally receives fuel in washed-out drinks bottles or even coffee jars, containers that may introduce contamination and invalidate any analysis. FAST supplies proper sample jars, and the reason is clear: good technical support begins with a clean, representative sample and accurate information about where and how it was taken.
The discussion also moved into the difficult territory of customer tanks where condition can vary enormously. Inherited contamination, water ingress and decades of accumulated sediment can all raise their heads when a fresh delivery disturbs what is already present.
This points to a valuable commercial practice: establishing the tank’s condition, checking for water where appropriate and recording relevant information can inform recommendations while reducing the potential for future complaints.
Cure has a place − but prevention changes the relationship
The Academy distinguished between products intended to deal with an existing problem and additives designed to prevent problems or enhance performance.
There will always be a need for corrective products. Sludge may need to be dispersed, microbial contamination treated or a dirty fuel system cleaned. In these situations, the customer already recognises the problem and is actively seeking a solution.
Preventative sales are harder because the benefit is avoiding something the customer may not believe will happen. This is why additives are often easier to sell reactively: the value becomes obvious only after inconvenience, cost or downtime has occurred.
The challenge for a distributor is to make prevention credible without relying on fear.
For a domestic heating customer, the relevant outcomes may be warmth, reliability and reduced risk of avoidable service issues. For a farmer, they may be storage resilience and keeping machinery working at critical periods. For a fleet operator, fuel economy, injector cleanliness, maintenance and downtime may matter most. An industrial customer may place greater value on burner cleanliness and operational continuity.
The Academy’s customer-profile exercises encouraged delegates to move away from product features and towards a more useful question: what does this particular customer need their fuel to do?
It is a question frequently lost in product-heavy sales conversations.
Selling the outcome, not the ingredient
If the morning provided the technical foundation, the afternoon asked what distributors do with that knowledge.
This is where Carol Badham of Oilmaxx, who has spent 38 years in the industry, made one of the key observations of the day. From a sales-management perspective, she said there had always been a drive to sell more additive because the commercial benefit was obvious, but suggested “the why was missing”.
The missing element is not a list of product features, but a convincing reason to raise the subject at all.
“THE CHALLENGE FOR A DISTRIBUTOR IS TO MAKE PREVENTION CREDIBLE WITHOUT RELYING ON FEAR.”
Pete Stoddard of Stoddards Fuels raised another point – that additised fuel could itself become a distributor’s point of difference: giving customers a choice not simply between identical litres at competing prices, but between standard fuel and a more clearly defined premium product.
This is particularly relevant in a commoditised market. When every conversation begins and ends with pence per litre, differentiation is difficult. A credible premium offer creates another basis on which customers can make a decision – but only if the business can confidently explain what “premium” means.
It is not a case of simply attaching a label to ordinary fuel and expecting customers to pay more. The premium offer needs a defined customer benefit and consistent language from everyone answering the telephone.
Customers do not generally want an additive. They want an outcome. The product is not the starting point. The customer’s problem – or the problem they would prefer never to have – is.
The most effective approach is therefore consultative rather than scripted, the Academy suggested. Ask about the application, usage pattern, storage conditions and previous problems. Explore the implications of failure. Then make a recommendation and explain its benefits in the customer’s language.
It is also important to retain a genuine choice. A recommendation should be suitable and evidence-led, not a default surcharge concealed within the order.
Margin without chasing more volume
The commercial logic behind the Academy is that distributors can increase margin from existing volume rather than relying entirely on selling more litres in a volatile market.
In the pre-event briefing, Scott summed it up: “You can grow profits without extra volume by making preventative additives a standard part of your offer, with an optional premium tier.”
FAST demonstrated this through a margin calculator showing how changes in the proportion of treated fuel sold could affect additive costs, selling-price uplift and gross profit. The figures were illustrative rather than guaranteed but made a useful point: a modest per-litre uplift, applied consistently across meaningful volume, can become material.
The calculation is the easy part. The more difficult task is changing behaviour inside the depot.
As Scott acknowledged, “You can give someone a figure and say, ‘We can help you achieve this.’ But if you don’t encourage your staff members to offer it and guide them in the right direction, the calculator falls flat on its face.”
A premium fuel strategy will not succeed because managers have seen an attractive spreadsheet. It requires training, suitable targets, regular measurement and a sales process that makes the conversation routine.
To encourage this essential follow-through, FAST delivers a 12-week post-Academy challenge intended to keep teams focused on putting what they have learned into practice. Targets are agreed, progress is reviewed and ongoing sales and technical support is provided.
Discussion turned to incentives.
During our pre-event conversation, Scott recalled one distributor introducing a modest reward for new additive sales and seeing a dramatic increase in activity as a result.
Rewards, commission or team targets can prompt someone to start a conversation but cannot compensate for a poor proposition. If employees regard the product as an unnecessary add-on, an incentive risks producing an awkward upsell. If they understand the customer’s needs and believe in the recommendation, it can reinforce the right behaviour.
The strongest internal message is therefore not simply “sell more additive”. It is: identify where treated fuel provides genuine value, explain it clearly and offer it consistently.
The lesson for distributors
It would be easy to view the FAST Academy simply as a manufacturer’s programme to sell more product. Of course, increased additive sales are a commercial objective. But that does not invalidate the wider questions the day raises for distributors.
The most useful takeaway was that a considered premium recommendation should become part of every relevant customer conversation, rather than something raised only after a problem occurs.
A customer rings. They want 1,000 litres of kerosene. The salesperson confirms the price, takes the address, agrees a delivery date and moves to the next call.
Efficient? Absolutely. But perhaps an opportunity missed.
As consumption and storage patterns change, those missed conversations may become increasingly relevant.
How much does your team understand about what happens to fuel after it leaves the refinery? How well do you understand the condition of customers’ tanks and their fuel usage patterns? Is your premium offer meaningfully different from standard fuel? Can staff explain that difference without reaching for jargon? And is the offer made consistently, or only after a customer has experienced a problem?
That is the real value of the FAST Academy approach.
Not simply teaching people how to sell another product, but encouraging them to understand the fuel, understand the customer and explain why an additional few pence might represent value rather than cost.
A distributor that can connect fuel condition with customer outcomes, assess rather than assume, and recommend prevention where appropriate gives the customer something more to consider than price alone.
And in a market where margins are pressured, volumes are weather-dependent and customers often notice their fuel only when it lets them down, that guidance may be the most valuable premium of all.
Image credit: FAST Exocet
