How To Get More Business For Your Trucking Company

By Author: Jon Tanner
Total Articles: 1
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If you've been running a small trucking company with just yourself and one truck for awhile and you're looking to grow your business and expand your fleet, you know you're going to purchase or lease more trucks. You'll also probably need to hire more drivers and mechanics and perhaps even some logistics/dispatch experts. And you'll need fleet insurance services, of course.

But that's all in the future. Your first step will be expanding the number of companies who hire you for deliveries. You know you need to do so, but you may be wondering how you'll do it.

Below are some tips/ideas on how you can go about getting more business for your trucking company.

First, you'll want to raise awareness about your company. News releases announcing your expansion and advertising will help with this. You also may wish to offer incentives to your existing customers to increase the amount of business they do with you. Finally, you'll need to publish brochures that you'll give to current customers and that you'll send to potential new customers.

As for the promotion/advertising/news release portion of your expansion ...
... efforts, send the press releases to newspapers, magazines and radio stations then follow up to see about their progress. You'll also want to send the releases to online press release distribution services such as PRWeb.com.

You'll need to advertise in trade publications. You also may wish to consider placing ads on billboards in various parts of the region(s) in which you plan to look for business, as well as Yellow Page advertising.

Offer discounts to your current customers for increased freight loads. Before you do so, print up your company's name/logo on T-shirts, coffee mugs, pens and pencils, etc. and leave these with your current and potential customers when you make sales calls.

In fact, you should consider hiring a full- or part-time sales person to make sales calls on new customers. You can make the position commission-only, which means you don't pay your salesperson a salary, but you do pay him or her a hefty commission on any and all freight business he or she brings you, with no limit on the amount of commissions he or she may receive. Don't be worried that you'll scare great salespeople away with a commission-only payment structure. You'll actually attract the real salespeople, the kind of sales people who love to find and close business deals because they know their potential income is sky high. Salespeople who prefer salary-plus-commission positions are more attracted to the safety of the salary you give them, looking at any commission they may earn as icing on the cake. They often aren't as aggressive as those who prefer commission-only work.

Your brochures should highlight the benefits of working with your trucking company. Let your potential customers know why they should hire you. Don't talk so much about the newness of your fleet, your years of experience, the training you constantly give drivers. Mention these but do so from your potential customers' point of view: Highlighting your years of experience shows your customers that you know the ins and outs of the industry and that you'll get their goods to their destinations quickly and efficiently. Your drivers have many years of experience themselves, which means your customers' cargo will arrive safely and quickly. Your fleet is new, so your trucks won't break down as often, which means your customers can rest assured their cargo will arrive at their destinations on time.

As you work to grow your trucking company, you can look forward to the day you'll be contacting your insurance company to let it know you'll need fleet insurance services.

Jon Tanner is the president of JD Tanner Insurance, a commercial trucking and fleet insurance company. Jon's experience in the trucking industry allows him to write accurate insurance for fleets and insurance for small trucking companies. For more details visit http://www.jdtannerinsurance.com/ and http://www.jdtannerinsurance.com/trucking.html