Distributor Spotlight - ECCO Engenharia

Hotstart partners with distributors around the world to help us deliver solutions to customers. Here is the first in a series of articles spotlighting these companies and the relationships we’ve built.

Lena Martin – Sales, Latin America

For a number of years, Hotstart worked directly with engine manufacturers and other customers in Brazil. We had some success, but our growth (potential) was limited without a local partner in the region.  

This was until I received an email from ECCO Engenharia in 2018 offering to be our distributor for that region. I was unfamiliar with their company, but we decided to give them a try after hearing positive feedback from another contact of mine in Brazil. From the beginning, we have had nothing but a great distributor experience with them!

I had a good feeling about how ECCO envisioned to work with Hotstart and promote our products in the Brazilian market from the get-go. They’ve been in business since 2003, representing Deep Sea Electronics (DSE) which is the largest-sold gen set controller in Brazil. When I proposed reaching out to DSE to make certain there would be no conflict of interest in ECCO representing Hotstart as well, Eduardo didn’t hesitate to put me in touch with his contacts – all of whom had great things to say about ECCO’s staff and technical acumen. Shortly afterwards, we visited ECCO to provide technical training. During our trip we learned just how serious their staff was in both learning about Hotstart products and applying that knowledge to look for opportunities in the Brazilian market.  

Within less than a year after offering our products, ECCO arranged to visit us in Spokane, Washington, for a formal weeklong-plus technical training, on their own dime. Eduardo Innecco (owner-partner), Thiago Martins (new business development), and Fernanda Correia (engineering), immersed themselves in the Hotstart culture, by asking questions, performing product installation, interacting with our various teams… and most importantly, having fun! 

The ECCO and Hotstart teams celebrating a successful training visit to Spokane.

I’ve had the opportunity to work with ECCO over the last few years, supporting their efforts at tradeshows and customer visits. ECCO represented us with a Hotstart/DSE booth at our joint first-time attendance to a trade show, in Sao Paulo, Brazil (FIEE 2019 – geared towards the industrial, electrical and electronic market segment).  Attending that show gave me the opportunity to observe the professionalism, technical knowledge and camaraderie not only from Eduardo, but from his entire team. After the show, both Eduardo and I spent a week on the road, visiting both ECCO’s and Hotstart’s customers.  Although Hotstart’s large customers in Brazil are original equipment manufacturers who often work with Hotstart directly, I still made it a point to take Eduardo on these visits.  In these arrangements, Eduardo emphasized the critical role ECCO can play as a technical resource, or in case a spare-part emergency flared-up to be there and assist.  And what a great resource ECCO has been to this day!

At Hotstart, we embrace every opportunity to further connect with our customers and distributors. To make this connection possible, our distributors must represent Hotstart well by showing continued interest in learning about our products, installation procedures and the best methods to assist customers.  Of course, sales are also key, and ECCO has done a great job in keeping up with their estimated volumes.  They are always very responsive to our requests and continuously thinking of ways to further our brand within their customer base and beyond.

Working with our partners helps Hotstart to expand our global offerings and provide the best thermal management solutions for end users.

ECCO continuously ensures that their technicians are up to speed with learning about our products.  Not only do their technicians share email chains to familiarize with customers’ most common technical questions and product recommendations, but during the height of the COVID pandemic a year ago, they also hosted a webinar on Hotstart products, with a second follow-up webinar later in April. It was a true demonstration of being vested in helping us grow market awareness! To this day, we’ve experienced nothing but a solid, professional, and rewarding relationship with ECCO Engenharia as our distributor in Brazil.

Eduardo Corrêa Innecco – Partner Director, ECCO Engenharia 

First and foremost, I want to say that we are happy for work relationship with Hotstart.

We have been working together since 2018 and it has been a rewarding experience, as we have always received the support and care from everyone in the Hotstart team (especially from Lena), when it comes to technical support, customer evaluation and their applications, visits and meetings, participation in trade shows, materials and content for marketing campaigns, amongst others.

All this support increases our confidence and helps us further grow our relationship. As a consequence, we become stronger as this improves our opportunities to develop business together.

Trust is an important factor in our relationship, and I am going to share a couple of situations that further solidified our relationship’s success:

Hotstart came to us through a recommendation from a client who realized they did not have a business partner in Brazil, something considered essential for a better service to the Brazilian territory. This client referred ECCO Engenharia based on the trust and reputation of our work. Lena started talking to us to develop what we consider to be an open, and solid, business relationship.

The same customer, who purchased directly from Hotstart, asked us to evaluate the possibly of purchasing their parts directly from ECCO Engenharia instead, without impacting the commercial conditions they had already established. It was a delicate situation, and Hotstart was sensitive in considering this request with the care that was necessary to setup the relationship locally.

We can say with certainty that HOTSTART understands and puts into practice the meaning of partnership.