The Courier Shop

Ethics can be a hot potato, just ask all those MPs about their expenses and ethics, morals and not breaking the rules will all start coming into the conversation.

As a courier business there is no legal requirement to be ethical, it could be argued there is a moral one though. Delivering for another courier company requires that you act in a moral manner and you do not steal a customer from a courier you have subcontracted for.

Subcontracting is a trust based business aspect, if you poach customers from other couriers then sadly you will find that word spreads and you can no longer get work. Who will allow you to subcontract for the if you steal their hard won clients? Who will hand you their business on a silver salver? How will you recover your reputation?

Word of mouth recommendation works two ways, and it will work against you as well as for you. Use it correctly, be praised for doing a great job rather than condemned. Poachers in the courier world are more reviled than bankers are these days, that’s not a good position to be in.

By not carding (leaving your business card) or leafleting at collection or destination points you will avoid any potential accusations on poaching when subcontracting. You may with permission from the courier company that is issuing the work, but other wise – it’s a big no-no. What you may think is a good marketing practice in one industry may not be in another – think carefully.

So what are your thoughts? Is it good to be ethical in your courier business?

Sarah

If you have a courier business you can measure your sales a variety of ways, but it will always boil down to money and how much of it is coming in and how much of is profit.

So what do you do when you don’t have enough? How do you grow your existing client base?

When you don’t have enough business, that is the time you review your business plan. If we are being honest, you should review it at least quarterly. You can see where your business is compared to your targeted sales projection. You can then start looking at reasons why your sales have dropped off. In this article we shall touch on a few, but it’s not a comprehensive article, let’s face it it would be the size of a library as there are so many variables.

1. Change of staff, staff who move on in key sales roles may cause a sales dip this can sometimes be avoided by forward planning.
2. Change of vehicles. If you have upgraded or downgraded your vehicles capacities recently you may find that has a significant impact on sales.
3. Change of a website, changing your website or email address if done by an amateur can cost you sales simply by not being found.
4. Competition – in two ways the competition can affect your sales. Your failure to differentiate from it and your failure to notice it.

Competitors can actually help grow your courier business, if they have different methods of business don’t think by copying them you will get their business – it doesn’t work like that. But there is nothing to stop you subcontracting their work and helping them grow, as you will also grow. Love thy competitor should have been the 11th commandment.

Talk to your customers, find out what their market conditions are like, if they are having a tough time think on what you can do to help.

* Promote them on your website, write a customer profile about what they do and promote them to your website’s readers.
* Think about who you interact with that may be looking for that kind of service and make an introduction.
* Be genuinely interested in their business, they are your customer after all and helping them where you can creates a stronger bond.

Of course the easiest way to grow your courier business is to sell to your existing customer base additional services, the fastest and most economically viable way is through a newsletter – when was the last time you sent one out?

Hopefully this article will have given you some ideas on how to boost the sales in your courier business. Let me know how you get on.

Sarah Arrow

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

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

Become a courier

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