newmercman:
Old John:
I started in 1978.
I’ve never had my name on the door. Never had alloys. Never had Kelsa bars. Never had a new truck.
If I’ve had success, it’s been by tackling the difficult and dirty or smelly jobs that the shiny boys turn their noses up at. If you’re prepared to do the unpopular jobs you quite soon become the go to guy and the customers come to trust you, and often don’t even ask how much the job will cost. Providing you don’t rip the p- -s out of them, they are grateful for what you do, and your phone keeps ringing. I think this is the only viable road for an owner driver to go down, as simple sub contracting for big operators seldom , but not always, ends well. In short, if you can’t identify a niche which you can cater for, then it’s going to be difficult.
This week, I did 1087 miles and grossed £3730 net of vat. I’m quite happy with that.That’s a good business model and an excellent way to get your foot in the door, ask potential customers what their most problematic job is, the one nobody wants to do, offer to take it on and before you know it, you get some cream to go along with it.
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Sound business advice in pretty much any environment.
In my humble opinion, a business has to either fill a gap or do something different/better than the other gap fillers to actually grow and be successful. I started out two years ago now, low debt and cash in the bank - cash flow (or lack of) kills more start ups than anything. I started with Class 2 work and did as John has suggested - picked up other peoples problems and solved them. And made mistakes too, but alwas grasped the nettle and left the customer satisfied. I knew early on that the Class 2 work I was getting was becoming more constrained so I used the business to pay for my Class 1 licence, I re-configured the business towards a proper ‘niche’ market and now, two years down the line, I’m making a reasonable return.
To put some figures into this - I’m forecasting a 42 wk yr, 4 day/48 hr week, with a turnover of circa £100k pa. Of that, I expect to retain iro £45k profit within the business - I pay myself a pittance of a wage to keep tax/NI contributions low, but my pension payments are on a par with my old £35k a year employed position. The company pay for all CPC and other licences (cranes/forks); business trips to chin wag with ‘partner’ agencies. In due course, I intend to take on a driver and add a Wag and Drag to cut back into the class 2 work I was doing but with the ability to now offer greater volume to other potential customers…
By far and away the main benefit for me is having the ability to drop a day/week when I need to as most of my work is managed as I see fit. I appreciate that is unsual in the logistics world but…niche is what it is.