Top 3 Mistakes to Avoid to Get More Haulage Contracts

Any campaign to get more haulage contracts can be significantly derailed if you make certain mistakes. The following three top the list because of their sheer impact on your transport business's future potential to grow and flourish.

Lack of Planning

As they say, failure to plan is tantamount to failure to succeed. Many people, in their eagerness for more haulage contracts, make the mistake of sallying forth and attempting to conquer without a blueprint of how exactly they are going to do it. For starters, you must have a business plan that shows your projected outgoing and earnings, something you and your decision-makers can work on. Sure, you may have innovative ideas on how to take the business world by storm, but without the evidence of your ideas’ viability, you may find your company in deep water. A detailed business plan is not only important for your company’s success, but also for the eyes of the people who may want to invest in your business endeavour: potential investors may be willing to take a risk with you if they see a clear direction of how you're guiding your company to stellar growth.

Marketing that Resembles a Loose Cannon

There is marketing, then there is laser-focused, appropriately targeted marketing, which actually brings results. You cannot just start churning out advertisements that announce your company’s brilliance in a bid to get as many haulage contracts as fast as possible, or you might end up firing the proverbial blunderbuss - all sound and fury, hitting nothing. Badly targeted marketing, aside from being too costly in terms of money and manpower, can also cause more harm than good: it may give your potential customers the wrong ideas about what your company can do for them. What you must focus on is sitting down and trying to identify your company’s unique selling proposition: what is it that you have that others don’t? For example: there may be half a dozen transport companies in your region, but does anyone else offer handling of the most delicate cargo, like you do?

Poor Recruitment

Not many fledgling businesses realise this, but human resource recruitment—hiring the people who will form the nucleus of your new business—is a most delicate, crucial aspect, and can make or break your efforts to get haulage contracts. Many people, in their desire to work within the confines of familiarity and camaraderie, make the self-damaging mistake of hiring friends and relatives. This is ok if said people turn out to have the right skill set and qualities that the position requires, but what if they barely perform adequately in their respective jobs? Moreover, there’s an old saying that states, ‘familiarity breeds contempt’, and if there’s truth in that (and there often is) you could have a toxic work environment on your hands.

Norman Dulwich is a correspondent for Haulage Exchange, the world's largest neutral trading hub for haulage contracts in the express freight exchange industry. Over 2,500 transport exchange businesses are networked together through their website, trading jobs and capacity in a safe 'wholesale' environment.