Start Your Own Transportation Service. Cheryl Kimball
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While you will want to glean information about your competitors in your market research, your intention here is to get the inside experience to evaluate your interest in that aspect of the industry.
Small-Business Personality Traits
There are six traits that are conducive to small-business success according to a study by the Guardian Life Small Business Research Institute. These six traits are:
1. Being collaborative. Knowing when and how to delegate and motivate others on staff.
2. Curiosity. Having an interest in scouring the world for ways to improve their business.
3. Focusing on the future. Business owners that planned cash flow and succession planning did better.
4. Self-fulfilled. Those who would rather be in control of their own destiny than feeling secure in a corporate environment.
5. Tech-savvy. It’s here, it’s the world, use it to your advantage and make your business more efficient.
6. Action-oriented. Adversity actually makes strong business leaders work harder and motivates them.
One group (RingCentral) reporting on this study in a blog post actually pulled “desire to delegate” from the “being collaborative” trait and thought it was important enough to be a trait of its own. It is unlikely that any one person is strong in all these traits. But think them through and think about your own approach to any one of them. Then figure out how you might strengthen the ones you are weaker in, even if the solution is something like delegating “tech-savvy” to someone else!
tip
If your small business will have employees, now’s the time to start learning about leadership. “A good leader allows both employee responsibility and creativity to encourage growth and new ideas” (“5 Leadership Lessons from Successful Small-Business Owners” by Royale Scuderi, Open Forum, www.americanexpress.com).
Any business category is unique, and the transportation business is no exception. A lot will depend on the type of business you plan to start in this far-reaching category, but in general there is a lot to consider.
Transportation of goods and transport services is fully entangled with scheduling. Clients will expect to have themselves or their goods get from one place to the other on time. If you are shipping that just-in-time inventory of Christmas lights from a manufacturer in Indiana to dollar stores across the upper Midwest, the manufacturer won’t hire you again if the shipment gets there December 26 (or even August 26, for that matter). The point is, you agree to a schedule with your customer and you stick to it.
If you aren’t good at the scheduling itself, let alone being on time, this kind of pressure is going to keep you up all night every night, and you may not want to start a trucking business (not to mention if you are not able to schedule, you will not have customers). Or you may want to delegate that part of the business to someone for whom juggling schedules is a dream job come true.
Whatever you do, you need to figure out if you can handle the pressure that comes with schedules that must be met and if you have the organizational and planning to skills to ensure you have satisfied customers.
stat fact
According to the Census Bureau, women own 36 percent of all U.S. businesses, and of those, 89 percent have no employees.
You may plan to actually be a driver in your transport business. Again, depending on what kind of transport business you start, you may find yourself on the road a lot. Make sure that suits not only your but your family’s lifestyle. This is the kind of thing that shouldn’t have to take you by surprise after setting up shop—you should be able to glean these details from your early investigations before ever starting a business. And when you do, think through how they will impact your life.
Some basic trends mentioned in the article “Finding the Right Small Business for You” from www.Bizfilings.com that are worth keeping in mind as you make decisions about your business are:
1. Both husbands and wives are wage earners in today’s market. This means that tasks that were once commonly performed by a stay-at-home wife/mom (like caring for aging parents, getting them to medical appointments, etc.) are often now delegated. Is this a service you can provide?
2. Outsourcing is popular in today’s businesses. Employees have been laid off and outsourced replacements brought in. Is there something in this trend that you can capitalize on? Being creative is the name of the game.
3. Is there a technological approach to your business? As a new business with no jobs behind you to show for success, perhaps you could have a virtual replica of how you pack the contents of a house into a moving van. Even technology is creative!
fun fact
The five best states for women-owned businesses, according to Thumbtack, are:
1. New Hampshire
2. Texas
3. Kansas
4. Oklahoma
5. Colorado
In the online article “Finding the Right Small Business for You,” Bizfilings’ Business Owner’s Toolkit (www.bizfilings.com) offers the following three common mistakes that people make in choosing a business (and reasons that often result in business failure):
1. Not doing the right amount of market research on demand for a product or service that is currently your hobby that you “think would make a good business”
2. Not planning enough
3. Not asking for help
Don’t succumb to these pitfalls. There is plenty of information out there on small-business startups in general, on specific types of businesses, and certainly on all aspects of the transportation industry. Read everything you can get your hands on, call people, and network—then actually contact the people that come as a result of your networking, and ask for help from those who have been there and from the professionals who are in the business of helping small businesses.
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