Archive for category Courier Blog
Green wash in courier businesses
Posted by sarah in Courier Blog, Driving on March 11, 2010
You may be thinking that it’s good to be green and it is. Any colour you like so long as it’s green would Henry Ford’s new mantra. In fact, it’s the mantra of many courier companies these days. From pale green to dark green, environmental awareness is essential in all businesses let alone a courier or transport business.
But it has to be done properly.
Using LPG or Electric vehicles do not make you a greener more environmentally aware company than Joe Bloggs down the road, you see there is more to your business being greener than what fuel you use. I have had courier companies ring up and moan about not getting a green business award (we got ours in 2007, one of the first in the UK). I ask them what else they offered as evidence in the awards application… “err nothing else, I run on electric I am green, that’s enough”. Well that’s why you didn’t win. You need to be doing more.
I have recently become aware of what I call Green Wash in couriers. For example I share subcontractors with a proclaimed leading courier company, the subcontractor was moaning about having to read and sign that he understood our green policies and green driving techniques – the real green courier company whom he also worked with didn’t offer or ask for this.
Damning with faint praise…
He went on to say they have electric vehicles and he was annoyed that the electric vehicles didn’t actually complete any deliveries – they just sat there and switched on for the media and they are getting heaps of work from being green!
Well, that’s not being green and it’s not ethical. It’s a start, a step in the right direction but the lack of ethics completely negates the positive – what good are their electric vehicles if they don’t get used?
So how do you become a green courier business?
You start with the end in mind and lower everything that has carbon emissions. You start with the office and finish with the customer.
Some couriers seem to think offsetting their carbon emissions absolves them from doing anything else, which is sad in a way – their policies need to be more joined up and so does their thinking. Or they stop servicing their vehicles, highly maintained vehicles run more efficiently, but all that is forgotten when it comes down to what fuel is used.
You may like this article here, that talks about waste and other aspects of making your business greener. The biggest enemy of green is waste, the vehicle that don’t get used – waste, the packaging that doesn’t get recycled – waste, the mobile phones that are out of date and kept in a box ‘just in case’ – a waste.
When proclaiming you are green remember there is more to being green than the fuel or vehicle you use. Remember what could happen to your reputation if you are found out to be green washing. It would take more than a few well prepped press releases to get you off the hook – just ask Primark and Mark’s and Spencer.
Sarah
If you met you for the first time, would you do business with you
Posted by sarah in Courier Blog on March 3, 2010
Here at the courier shop we are lucky enough to work with leading sales trainer Linda Mattacks on how to grow sales for our courier businesses, in a nutshell – how do we find more courier work?
- Image by Getty Images via Daylife
If you are looking for a quick fix solution then go and join a freight exchange – there are enough of them, but that doesn’t fix the underlying issues that you may have and doesn’t improve things long term.
One of the things that Linda does best (and believe me she can do a lot of fantastic things) is Elevator Pitches, she wrote mine and it works. An Elevator Pitch is where you explain what you do within a minute without selling, and quantify what sort of leads/prospects you are looking for. This makes it easier for the person you are talking to to understand what you are doing and how they can help you.
One of the easiest ‘pitches’ for me to remember was a magician – he demonstrated a quick trick and said he was available for parties, weddings and corporate events: Job done! Or so I thought…
What do you want?
The magician example leads into the fact that it seems many of us (Brits, anyway) when networking not only fudge what we do, we won’t say what we really want: we prefer to say what we’ll settle for! How daft is that?
Linda Mattacks Source: Birds on the blog
If you cannot talk about what you do with with passion and enthusiasm then quite simply you are dead in the water – you are not worth remembering and you are certainly not worth recommending to.
Now, before we get lost in the intricacies of a pitches and introducing ourselves to other business people remember every business situation is an opportunity to talk about how you and your business can help other businesses. If you are attending event after event and getting no where fast, you need to examine why you are there.
If you met you for the first time, would you do business with you? And why?
Sarah Arrow & Linda Mattacks
The white van man – the game
Posted by sarah in Courier Blog, Courier Shop Admin, Driving, Fleet Information on December 16, 2009
New game from Y8, they have come up with a game playing the stereotypical white van man driver.
The object of this simple game is to ram the other cars off of the road and complete the course… of course 
What do you think? Will it catch on?
Nothing new under the sun part two: White van advertising
Posted by sarah in Courier Blog, Driving, Get More Customers on December 8, 2009
I was surprised to see this, this morning.
LONDON – “White Van Man” is set to become the latest ad medium with the launch of a media service offering to display posters on the backs of white vans across the UK- Source: Campaign Live
It was only last week a business was proclaiming their tech would tame white van man, tech that has been available and used for quite some time 
. Indeed nothing new under the sun.
Upon closer examination this looks like a cracking idea, extra revenue for the owners of white vans (and as I own several, I know they are not cheap to run or maintain) as well as extra visibility for the advertiser. The downside are despite looking around the site of Posters in Transit, I can’t see what the policy on advertisers who are your direct competition. For example do couriers wish to advertise rival companies? Can you select who you promote?
What happens as a courier when you collect a job from a customer for them to see you are branded with their competitors products…
As many of us undertake ‘ad hoc’ work, we may not be able to specify our routes and journeys enough to qualify for decent paying advertisers. We will lose a days work as you can bet your life the van wrapping team only work 9-5pm Monday to Friday. Also additional work in the respect that we would have to notify our insurers that we are now carrying advertising on the vehicles.
Whilst van advertising is nothing new, this campaign does seem more prominent. It also seems suited to companies that use their own delivery vans rather than couriers. Couriers do far more miles but there are things like client confidentiality agreements, secure deliveries and high value deliveries that all require us to blend into the background – something that the advertising won’t allow us to do.
Sarah
Sarah Arrow can be contacted via sales@thecouriershop.co.uk
White van man allegedly tamed…
Posted by sarah in Courier Blog, Courier Shop Admin, Courier World, Driving, Fleet Information, Legal/Accident Advice on December 2, 2009
Well it seems like there really is nothing new under the sun, as vehicle satellite tracking has been rebranded as the tool to tame white van man. The ‘new’ product is called “Driver DNA” and tracks the driving of a vehicle and shows harsh braking patterns and agressive driving patterns, again all things that are shown in real time with satellite tracking. A system we use goes as far as ‘geo-fencing’ postcodes and emailing alerts when vehicles reach a certain area or postcode or breaks the speed limit. It can tell you when the vehicle is turned on, whether it’s idling – just about anything you could want to know and quite a few things you wouldn’t want to know as well.
Couriers have long used Tom Tom fleet systems and products such as Journeeze to manage their fuel consumption and where their vehicles are. Fuel is the biggest expenditure where white van man are concerned and monitoring closely is something they do. As any good fleet manager would tell you, monitoring fuel consumption is an early highlighter of vehicle faults and all vehicles are checked on a daily or weekly basis as per transport regulations, with records that prove the action has taken place.
Driver DNA hardly seems original, any good tracking system will do the same as it does and has several years heritage as well. It’s disappointing that once again white van man is blamed for co2 emissions and bad driving. Obviously the makers have never seen or drove near school run mum, who drives erratically without thought for anyone else on the road just delivering her kids to the school, reversing without using her mirrors, signaling one way then going the other. Now you know why most accidents happen close to schools. Instead of inventing the double seatbelt to combat School Run Mum, the creators of Driver DNA have just decided to reinvent the wheel with no thought to what products already do the job, that already solving the problem they proclaim exists.
2/10 for effort, must try harder is this white van womans report, you are three years behind the times.
Sarah
Would you add an 83ft lorry to your fleet?
Posted by sarah in Courier Blog, Courier World, Driving on December 1, 2009
What if the lorry would replace three other lorries and reduce carbon emissions? Denby Transport have been working on the lorry for some years now and have managed to make the centre wheels steerable.
A “superlorry” that is nearly 30ft (nearly 9m) longer than normal could be coming to Britain’s roads.
The longer, heavier vehicle is 25.25m (83ft) long. In comparison, a normal articulated lorry is 16.5m (54ft) long and a “bendy-bus” is 18m (59ft).
The owner, Denby Transport, wants to bring it to Britain’s roads because it says that for lightweight goods such as cereals and aluminium cans, conventional lorries run out of space before they run out of weight.
This new lorry would be able to take more of these goods, even though it would still have to respect the UK weight limit of 44 tonnes.
Denby says two of these new lorries could replace three existing trucks.
It argues that fewer lorries on the roads would mean fewer accidents and less CO2 emissions Source: BBC News
It appears that Denby have invested considerable time and money in producing a rig that can steer and haul two trailers instead of one. The Uk Government are saying it’s illegal, and their concerns centre around the vehicle breaking down and towing two trailers, but surely each trailer could be towed individually?
This would make a superb trunking vehicle for a lot of parcel carriers and I would have thought that they would be throwing their weight behind Denby Transport.
Good luck Dick Denby and team, the prototype looks good and that’s been improved since you filmed the clip 3 years ago, just stick to the motorways…
What do you think? Would you buy one for your fleet?
Sarah
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Guest Blog: Couriers how to promote your business
Posted by sarah in Courier Blog, Get More Customers on November 26, 2009
David Paget is the owner of UKSMF Ltd, a free sales and marketing advice site. He has put together 5 top tips to consider with your courier and parcel business marketing practices:
1. Know your customer - The first mistake many courier business can make is not knowing their customers. Define your target market carefully through research and segmentation, then position yourself as different and as superior to your courier competitors.
2. Get your message right ? A great way to do this is to do a SWOT analysis of your courier business.
- Strengths,
- Weaknesses,
- Opportunities
- Threats
Write it all out on a piece of paper and you’ll be surprised at how focused this will make you in writing your message to your potential customers.
3. Features and Benefits – A feature is a great thing but it always needs to be backed up by the benefits of the feature. I.E. ? ? We are insured which gives you great peace of mind that your parcel will be delivered safe and sound. The benefits will drive the customers impulse to buy your service against your competitors.
4. Always follow up You’ve just done all of the hard work and attracted the customer to your service, spoken to the potential customer and engaged their interest? So what do you do next? You need to schedule a follow up and make sure that you do it. Conversion rates can be dramatically improved just by following up properly. Even if you lose that potential it is still wise to follow up 3 months later, maybe they still need the service that you offer.
5. Keep your marketing efforts going – Even if your first efforts bring you 5 customers at once, if you stop marketing your business will become very quiet again. Even 10 minutes a day will benefit your courier business.
Try different marketing messages as some will work better than others, when you find one that works, stick with it. Running a business is about 99% perspiration and 1% inspiration – stick with this motto and you should not go too wrong.
For even more free marketing advice for couriers, visit our friendly community over at www.salesandmarketingforums.co.uk
Look forward to your comments
Regards
Dave
David Paget
Operations Director
UKSMF Ltd
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Transport Exchange Courier Awards and Party 2009
Posted by sarah in Courier Blog, Courier World on November 23, 2009
Saturday evening we spent a lot of time with Ken Roast from Courier Works, Steve Lee from Concierge Couriers and Pat, Susan and the rest of the Patterson family from Pepperpot Couriers.
We were at the Hilton in Coventry and attached are two videos, warts, bums n legs and all… so you get to see what goes on when 250 courier companies around the UK meet up, have dinner and then vote on the best of the business, in our opinions.
Congrats to to all the winners and thanks to Mark Paterson for helping with the videoing – he also managed to win £400 worth of insurance from One Business as well.
Thanks to Alison and Zemina for all their effort in organising this, it gets better every year
And Pat… I am level 72 on the farm and I may throw a sheep at you 
Sarah
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Have you put your winter tyres on yet?
Posted by sarah in Courier Blog, Driving on November 22, 2009
In some EU countries it’s a legal and safety requirement to drive with winter tyres on. Have you put yours on yet?
- Image by Gone-Walkabout via Flickr
In Germany and Switzerland, as well as other EU countires you can be fined heavily for not driving with the correct tyres.
What’s a winter tyre?
Winter tyres have different tread patterns to summer of regular tyres which enable them to cope with weathered road surfaces more efficiently and safely. Some have metal studs as well as different treads.
If in doubt, when delivering to a European destination, ask your customer if they know whether they have a requirement for winter tyres. It’s better to ask than cop a fine for a simple thing such as putting the correct tyres on your vehicle.
When does winter start?
In Germany winter starts at the first snowfall, and that point you are legally required to drive with your ’snow’ or winter tyres. In France winter tyres are not mandatory except in the mountain regions.
Be careful and check the driving requirements, if you are driving without the correct tyres for the season and have an accident you could find your insurance is invalidated.
Kevin
The Complete Courier Guide tells you things that other guides don’t know…
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How are you coping with increased fuel costs?
Posted by sarah in Courier Blog, Courier World, Driving on November 20, 2009
One of the biggest costs of a courier, haulier or transport industry business is fuel.
Does the price of fuel affect the way you drive? the amount of goods you order online? or is it business as usual for you?
- Image by Roby© via Flickr
Everything has to be delivered at some stage, from the manufacturer to the warehouse, to the supermarket, to the shops – you get the picture. Margins for hauliers are quite small, often just 4 or 5%, so when fuel increases by 26% in a year so the chances of a profit are relatively small and with fuel set to increase again, more are going to go bust. For the courier that means one less source of overflow work, as hauliers and couriers work in partnership all the time, contracting and subcontracting to each other.
I have listed here several greener, fuel saving articles as well as the guest blog about the hydrocharger system. Fuel saving driving isn’t just for when the fuel price is high, it’s for all the time so practising the techniques and refreshing your memory of them is a good idea.
The recession isn’t over yet and the Government needs to ensure that UK hauliers, the safest in Europe can compete fairly with other EU haulage companies and heavy fuel taxes isn’t doing anything positive for UK industry, in fact it’s keeping us in recession.
Kevin
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About Us
When I started my courier business 7 years ago the internet only gave a few options on how to become a courier. The information was both poor and costly. I joined a freight exchange, sent out leaflets and picked up the phone. I grew my business and year on year saw people thinking they could just jump in a car and become a courier, then get disappointed when they failed. There is a bit more to being a courier than driving.
It was frustrating watching people waste money whilst I was out winning business awards and it was then I decided that I was going to write The Complete Courier Guide to help those wanting a successful business and those that knew it wasn't easy money -what job is?Our ebooks have sold well ever since and I am thrilled when I hear the success our customers are having.
If you are looking to start up as a courier, then start here.