A couple of weeks when my wagon was off for MOT I was faced with the boring prospect of a couple of dull days in the yard, I decided to try and do something productive.
I grabbed a handful of business cards, jumped in the pick up truck and spent a day trundling around calling at a few places we’d never done anything for and a few that we’d not been to for a while. I know that most companies are unresponsive to sales reps pitching up and trying to push their wares unannounced so I stayed in normal working gear and just went in for a quick informal chat to see if we might one day be of use if they ever got in a muddle.
Of the 15 companies I visited.
1 had no use for vehicles of our size as their stuff was lawn tractor size.
2 said that all their transport was placed nationally by their respective H/O
2 more were similar but they kept the details in case something urgent needed doing
1 said that they usually rang around and would call us for a price when needed
7 said that they only had occasional use for outside haulage but would think of us when needing something
So far it doesn’t look massively promising but I wasn’t expecting much.
1 agricultural dealer was very interested and said he’d definitely call soon
1 plant firm who we’d done a bit for a few years ago invited me and spent a while talking about stuff generally, as it happens he was now running an extra motor so outside haulage requirements had been reduced, however with one driver retiring and another about to go on holiday we would likely get a call.
Tomorrow I am delivering a tractor for the agricultural dealer to Spalding, the plant firm rang about a job for Saturday morning and whilst on the phone we picked up a back load from Kings Lynn.
Finally we seem to be thinking about how to make our transport operations more effective.