Finding freight is not an easy task. Many small transport companies search continuously for loads and extra freight. Read more how can you save your transport company and get extra freight.

This article helps in increasing the turnover for SMB transport companies.If you are having one of these problems, it is worth reading this article:

• You are a small transport (moving) company and facing difficulties in increasing your turnover. You wanted to optimise your truck capacity and want to full maximum of loads.
• You are new to transport service industry and opened recently your company and looking for new transport business opportunities (loads and freight).
• You are badly hit by crisis and thinking of launching bankruptcy procedures.
• Your transport service company is providing excellent service but are not rewarded for your good work.

If one of these cases is applicable to your situation, we recommend reading further this article that will help you certainly.

Transport and logistics is the one of the most important sector affected by economical crisis resulting in heavy damage and loss to activity.

Many big transport and logistic companies reported loss in these past years and a large number of small and medium size transport companies including haulage, man and van firms closed their doors for good.

Although, initiative taken by governments were very promising but helped a little to give immediate relief to small transporters and local carriers, who found themselves in situation where getting a transport assignment from big logistic companies became very difficult.

Increase in competition, increase in fuel prices, increase in toll taxes, increase in company taxes, and strict environment regulations made the life of small transport company miserable.Not going in more details, as being a carrier, we are sure you can make this list even more complete.

Under these circumstances, how can you run your transport company and remain profitable?There is no single and simple answer to it, however, there are many ways of getting your trucks moving on road and remain financially healthy to keep moving your company.

Cut the cost before it punctures your tyres:

Luxury comes after survival! If you are facing it hard to increase your revenue, then first you should check up the leaky points in company that are letting your money out.

In transport business, common expenses are related to vehicles, employees, fuel prices, toll taxes and vehicle maintenance.

We will give tips that will help killing cost for these factors.

Transport Vehicles (Trucks): If you are thinking a transport company and in process of setting it up, we advise you to first consider transport market segment wherein you see yourself fit the most. Depending on the segment, buy new vehicles (banks and truck manufacturing companies do have loan facilities, check them!! Remember golden rule: In business, everything can be bargained even the rate and terms of loan contract ). Buy trucks with high fuel efficiency and minimum environment impact. (This will save you from a lot of taxes and may qualify you for some extra advantages from government).

Do not buy trucks when you have no drivers to drive them. Grow your company step by step.

Buying trucks and keeping them parked is not a great idea. Even a parked truck eats your money. Most of the vehicle dealers negotiate on quantity of trucks you are buying. While negotiating keep number of vehicles in future possibilities but never commit and try to get better price based on your future purchase (After all, if the manufacture want you to remain loyal, he has to give you some financial advantage).

Employees: Always get experienced drivers for your vehicles even if they cost a bit more than new ones. Hire them, when you have business and a truck!

In hiring process check if candidate has sufficient mechanical knowledge and check for history of his driving carrier. Loyalty and hard working should be the golden words you should search in a profile. Professional drivers knowing routes and tricks of trade are the best guys that will help boosting up your business.

Fuel prices: Fuel prices are one of the major cost factors in transport business. To keep maximum savings on fuel, you need to find the gas stations giving right prices. Fuel prices are variable and fluctuate so best is to keep track of all gas stations on the route or close to your company.

To find the list of such gas stations, there exist lot of sites offering this free service like: http://www.zagaz.com/ (For France) and http://www.petrolprices.com/ (For UK).

Use them!

Toll taxes: Toll taxes are bitter realities! In Europe many countries are notoriously known for very high toll taxes for example, in France, toll taxes are very expensive. There are many free route planner applications and sites that give you free route description with possibility to avoid motorways and toll tax routes. While making use of these applications, keep in mind the size and dimension of your vehicles. On some routes heavy vehicles are not allowed.

Calculate the price difference for each route by keeping in mind delivery commitments. Better first calculate routes before giving a transport quote. Always give two quotes mentioning fast and low cost delivery options. It helps client to choose appropriate delivery solution.

Sites like www.mappy.com give you such possibilities for calculations.

Money doesn’t grow on trees; it is lying on your empty truck floor

Getting contracts with logistic and distribution companies is the first thing you should seek for. However, only relying on these contracts is like keeping all eggs in the same bucket.

It is highly recommended that besides these contracts you should consider other revenue channels.

One of the most reliable and efficient way is using internet to find transport demands.

FretBay.com (https://fretbay.com ) is for example the first reliable channel of finding loads across whole Europe. The system permits to place your offers on these demands and when a customer accepts your offer, the site sends you the contact detail. The transport demands can be consulted on: https://fretbay.com/en/annonces.php

There are small charges for their service. The advantage is that your good service is rewarded in terms of customer feedback. This gives your newly born company (or your company in crisis) a good reputation and visibility on internet.

FretBay is only open for professional transporters and helps in building up good image of serious transport companies. This is a serious revenue source and you should consider registering your company on this site.

For registration, you can click on following link: https://fretbay.com/en/etape1port.php

Dutch says: Planning is half work and nobody can do it better than your better half

The ideal situation for any transport company is that in which all truck are booked for up coming six months. Unfortunately, life is not that fair.

Getting transport assignments for six months from a major logistic distribution company in advance is possible however, how much they will keep their promises, ask already experienced ones.

As an owner of a transport company, you need to pay extra attention on delivery planning.

Life could be much easier if you had to worry only about planning. There are many extra duties to be taken care of, like, giving quotes, paying taxes, duties, maintenance requirements, insurances etc.

We have seen many small successful companies are run by couples. Your partner can take care of this administration work. Depending on your situation, if possible, this can help you a lot and you can concentrate in growing up your business.

If the situation doesn’t allow your partner to take part in your activity, think about hiring part time students that can help you with this burden. This will help students to get extra pocket money and will help you in concentrating on running your company in more productive way.

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