As if trying to get more haulage contracts is not challenging enough, there are serious mistakes any business owner can commit that could easily make things much more difficult. The following are just three of the said grave mistakes that you should avoid at all cost.
Badly Targeted Marketing
They say that having any marketing strategy at all is much better than having nothing, but the truth is that launching a marketing campaign that has no clear goals or vision can work against your company. Worse, if you’re working to get more haulage contracts, badly targeted or poorly implemented marketing can hurt your company’s reputation and even leave some long-term damage. Moreover, any marketing campaign has its attendant costs, and failure in this area means money and resources wasted. The point is that before you launch a campaign, you must brainstorm first and identify your company’s unique selling points and identifying what you have that others don’t? By fleshing out your unique strengths and market position, you can then frame a campaign that should yield effective results.
Recruiting the Wrong People
The recruitment of personnel, especially those who would be your very first employees, is extremely important and if you end up hiring the wrong people for the job, the result can be disastrous. This would not only affect your first efforts of getting haulage contracts, but it would also hamper the growth of the business in the long run. And a common mistake in this area is hiring friends and relatives. While you may be able to bargain with their supposed salary (some of them might even work for free), which gives you some wiggle room as far as expenses is concerned, it can backfire once it turns out that the friends and relatives you hired are not really fit for the job. If that happens, then you have a real mess in the workplace at a time when you should be focusing on taking your fledgling business to another level. Our simple point is that it is not a good idea to hire family, as the sense of familiarity may be too much that feelings get in the way of professionalism.
Failure to Plan
One of the most common, yet crucial mistakes committed by companies, especially those in the haulage industry that is campaigning to get more haulage contracts, is the sheer failure to come up with a solid plan. Many proprietors allow their inspiration to take over, and an idea that seems so awesome, for example, and therefore needs no explanation, crashes and burns at the slightest appearance of a challenge. You cannot dismiss the fact that the more detailed your plan is, the better you will be able to handle or manage risk and adversity. A plan serves as a blueprint that should guide you and the company’s other decision-makers as you navigate through the tumultuous waters of the industry.
If you’re pitching the business to investors, having a detailed business plan helps convince even the most doubtful of them to take the risk with you. As long as they see a clear path on which you’re taking the company to further growth, they should be happy to invest.