There’s nothing more frustrating as a logistics or devilry company than having a fleet parked up at your facility with few rides and loads to undertake. The running costs of your fleet are considerable, and you’re always looking to maximize the time your drivers are spent on the open road. As such, drumming up business is one of the key objectives of a fleet manager. This article is all about how you’ll do that in a number of creative ways, ensuring that you always have somewhere to turn in order to boost the number of journeys your drivers are doing each month.
Website
As with so many other businesses, everything starts with your website. It’s here that any individual in the world will be able to find your business, so long as they type in the relevant search terms. Make sure there are keywords across your website that details the kinds of services that you offer and the location of your drivers. That way, Google will show your website to those who are searching for a new delivery company to partner with in your area. Boost your website with marketing initiatives and by advertising on social media in order to give your website the best chance of retiring your clients.
Prices
Always display your prices on your website. This will enable savvy shoppers to decide whether you’re the delivery firm that they want to partner with. It’s also worth sharing your content details prominently on every page so that potential clients know that it’s easy to get in touch to negotiate rates and to learn more about your availability. Remember that your availability is important for clients, but the prices that you can offer may well determine, ultimately, who chooses to partner with you and who chooses to partner with one of your rivals. As such, make sure you’re offering competitive prices, or you’ll find you just don’t have enough work at the end of the month.
Contacts
The contacts that you do make in this line of work are incredibly important. They are the people who will be more loyal to your firm, especially if you’ve treated them with respect and dignity in your dealings with them over the previous months and years. If you’ve also nailed your deliveries, they’ll be far more likely to partner with you again than risk going with an alternate provider that they don’t know. Keep this contact book topped up with new clients, and do keep in touch with clients via email, over the phone, and through social media. Sometimes it’s enough to just remind a client that you’re there – they’ll appreciate your time and may well come back to you with work in the future.
New Loads
As well as nurturing old clients, you can also find completely new clients on land-sharing websites such as Truckstop.com. It’s here that you’ll find a long list of potential loads for your drivers to take, including the price that new clients are prepared to pay for the service you’re delivering. It’s sometimes worth taking up these loads, even if you feel that the profit margin is a little small for you and your drivers. That’s especially the case if there are larger clients advertising on these platforms who may enjoy the services that you offer and might well consider partnering with you more formally in the longer term. Use these sites to find these valuable clients and to fill in gaps when your fleet is inactive.
Marketing
If you feel that you’re struggling to drum up enough work on a frequent basis to keep all of your drivers busy, it may well be time to turn your investment efforts to marketing. Now, it’s unlikely that you’re familiar with the technicalities of marketing, as that’s a specialist domain with professional operatives, just like logistics firms. But you will be able to find reliable and trustworthy agencies who can help you market your delivery firm in your local or regional area. These firms can help you to reach new clients, finish higher on Google’s search results, and build a brand identity that clients and potential clients can trust to deliver for them in the long term.
Research
When times are a little tough and you’re not as busy as you’d like to be, you shouldn’t twiddle your thumbs at your desk waiting for the phone to ring. Instead, you should be proactive, searching for large firms in your area and giving them a call to enquire if they are in the market for delivery services. You will often receive the reply that they already have a delivery partner. Here’s where your salesmanship comes in: you should ask them what kinds of prices they’re paying for their deliveries and whether they’re entirely satisfied with the service provided to them. It might be that the person at the end of the call is interested in the fact that you’re suggesting your firm could offer a better service for cheaper. These calls can lead to lucrative new contracts, so do practice your sales patter in advance to give yourself the best chance of scoring a new client off a cold call.
Professional Relationships
Not every other logistics and delivery firm in your area could be classed as a rival or a competitor. While there may be significant overlap in the services that you offer clients, these companies should also be considered friends. For instance, if it happens that they’re overcapacity for a certain month, they are likely to turn to friendly firms in their area to fill those gaps in personnel and vehicles. That’s even more likely in the post-pandemic era when firms need extra flexibility for when staff are sick and off work. With this in mind, it’s worth treating your competitors with respect. Forge working relationships with some of them for when you’re overcapacity, and they’ll return the favor when they’re unable to fulfill all of their delivery obligations.
These tips are designed to help deliver firms and logistics companies drum up more business by reaching out to new clients and ensuring that you’re always at capacity with work.
