3 Keys to Success in Trucking: Organization, Customers, & Data

It’s not like these are big secrets.  If you talk to any successful trucker or broker, they’ll tell you the same things.  The three keys to success are

1. Organization
2. Finding the problems and solving them
3. Building up the customer base.

As a broker with many years experience, I knew what I needed to keep my business moving.    I had a lot of records, but I never got everything to come together in the right way.   But when I got sick and had to have help, everything was up here in my head. My dad came to help out and it was his idea to use technology to make my work easier.

That’s how TruckingOffice came to be – to help me be better organized.  Because I worked with the programmers on what a trucker or a trucking manager needs – not just their best guesses – TruckingOffice is the best program on the market to get a chaotic office or a messy cab organized in the shortest possible time.

Organization with TruckingOffice

There are truckers who were perfectly happy with an envelope and spreadsheet system.  Why not?  It worked for them.  Getting someone to consider changing what works doesn’t make much sense.

Electronic driver logbooks are changing how things work, whether we want them to or not.  EDLs are here to stay and we’ve got to make our peace with electronics in the cab.  If we’re doing that, maybe it’s also time to recognize the power of computing to make the rest of our business more organized. Using a good trucking software can take a lot of the off-the-road work off your desk and into your cab while you’re waiting for the crew to load your truck.  Want to be sure to keep in contact with shippers who pay well?  How do you remember them?  Then there’s the maintenance.  You have to keep accurate records for when the DOT comes to call.  Wouldn’t it be easier to keep that handy, not only for the DOT, but when you’ve got to deal with an emergency on the road?

As you can see, it’s not just about getting someone else to crunch the numbers for the IFTA or income taxes.  It’s about understanding your business and how to make it grow.

Can’t Find the Solution if You Don’t Know the Data

You may know you’ve got a problem, but until you can get the data organized in a way to understand it, you’ll need a lot of luck to stumble onto the solution.  Finding problems and solving them is a lot harder without good reporting features.  Unless someone has amazing programming skills in Excel, getting reports that will clearly show the problems in a business is hard to do.  The basic numbers that any trucker needs to know – the overall cost per mile and the overall expenses per mile – take a lot of computing time with spreadsheets.

I wanted to know those numbers to be sure I was getting loads that made me money and I wanted to see what was taking money out of my pocket.  I had dozens of spreadsheets and no answers.

If you don’t know how much it costs you to haul a load, how can you be sure that you’re getting loads that will make you money? That right there may be the key to success – but if you can’t open that door without it.

Customers We Want to Keep

I talked to a trucker yesterday who has a dedicated lane from North Carolina to Tennessee hauling auto parts.  He’s home every night.  That’s a load he wants to keep forever.  So he’s got to make that customer happy.

Part of keeping my customers happy and keeping their business is handling the invoicing correctly.  Getting that taken care of should be my priority but if my records are a mess… and I’m back at Key #1: Organization – again.

Sure, there may be a better load out there.  It’s just a matter of finding it.  But keeping the great customers is the way to make the most money.  Don’t lose them because your organization skills aren’t keeping up. Once you find that great customer, you want to keep them.

Drive Your Truck to Success

TruckingOffice isn’t just about keeping track of details.  It’s about making you successful – getting your business working so you have time to make it great.

We’re so confident that we’ll give you a chance to try TruckingOffice for free.  No credit card, no checking account number needed to try out our software for you to find the keys to your trucking business success.