Lessons from a ‘Textbook’ sale: How TerraPro trusted the Ritchie Bros. process and won big

We all have that corner of the shop—or that section of the yard—where equipment sits just a little too long. It’s still good iron, beautifully maintained, but the utilization rate has dropped. You keep holding onto it, thinking, “We might need this on the next job.”

But eventually, it’s time for some spring cleaning.

That’s exactly where Chris Martin, Vice President of TerraPro, a premier civil and matting contractor serving the Western Canadian infrastructure market, found himself. He wasn’t retiring; he was simply looking to restructure and realign his company’s fleet.

After a massive, highly successful multi-piece sale at a recent Ritchie Bros. auction in Edmonton, Chris sat down with our Customer Insights team to give us the honest rundown of what it takes to pull off a textbook auction victory.

Lesson 1: Fleet realignment strategy beats spontaneity

Chris will be the first to tell you that he hasn’t always been the “perfect” Ritchie Bros. customer.

“I learned firsthand over the years that when I would sell a piece or two and it wasn’t planned or strategically aligned with what needed to happen, I did quite poorly,” Chris admits. “This time around, it was more than one piece. I got a hold of my Territory Manager, Bryan Watson, early on—around late November—and said, ‘I think we’re going to realign our company. Our equipment utilization rate has been low for quite a few years.'”

Bryan’s advice was simple: Trust the process, follow the timeline, and do the prep work. Chris agreed, and they got to work early.

Lesson 2: Transparency builds buyer confidence

When you have a large package of equipment hitting the global stage, you get to take full advantage of the Ritchie Bros. marketing machine. But Chris didn’t just rely on our social media push—he went all-in on transparency to make sure buyers knew exactly what they were bidding on.

Here is the blueprint Chris used to drive up buyer confidence:

• Left the Decals On: “I actually wanted people to know where the equipment came from,” Chris says. He even welcomed phone calls from prospective buyers looking for firsthand history on the machines.
• Attached Maintenance Records: Chris’s team pulled detailed maintenance files and attached them directly to each equipment listing. Buyers knew exactly what had been fixed, what had been serviced, and how well it was cared for.
• Put in the Man-Hours: His mechanics spent days going through the equipment, servicing units, washing them, and detailing them. “You don’t want to just haul it from a job site out there,” Chris notes. “There was a lot of work that went into it, but in the end, it always pays off. You get that investment back. In our case, we did.”

Lesson 3: The power of the Ritchie Bros. auction yard  

While everything at Ritchie Bros. sells online, Chris insisted on hauling his entire fleet to the local Ritchie Bros. auction yard. Why? Because local buyers still love the “touch and feel” aspect of inspecting iron in person.

“The guy in Ontario is going to see the same pictures whether it’s in my yard or your yard,” Chris explains. “But the guy who is geographically close is going to go to your facility. Visibility is just better in the yard.”

Even when our inspector showed up to catalog the fleet on a miserable -30°C day, the process remained smooth and seamless.

The Verdict: Achieving ‘one and done’ equipment sales success

On the first night of the three-day auction, Bryan Watson called Chris to check in. Chris had come into the sale with some highly aggressive internal numbers, knowing his equipment intimately.

The result? Some pieces hit his ambitious predictions dead-on, while several other pieces blew right past his expectations.

“Bryan phoned to congratulate me that first night,” Chris smiles. “He knew my numbers because we had talked multiple times, and he said, ‘You must be pretty happy.’ It was a resounding, ‘Yes, I am. Thank you.’ After the sale, there’s not much of a process. It’s one and done. You just carry on.”

Chris’s sale was a textbook example of what happens when a seller partners early with their Territory Manager, invests in equipment presentation, and lets the global market do its thing. In fact, Chris was so happy with the workflow that he’s already working with Bryan to consign a liquidation of redundant tools, attachments, and consumable warehouse goods for an upcoming auction.

Are you sitting on underutilized assets that are ready for a realignment? Don’t wait until the last minute. Connect with a local Ritchie Bros. Territory Manager today to map out your own textbook sale.

See also

Ritchie Bros. honors Mervyn Pidherney with Hall of Fame induction in Edmonton