When starting your own fleet company, you should make sure you have everything prepared so that you can avoid potential hiccups when launching. In the guide we’ve put together below, we’ve come up with some of the best ways to make sure your fleet company gets off to the best start. Keep reading to find out more.
Fleet of vehicles. Credit: Markus Winkler / Pixabay (CC0)
Credit: Markus Winkler / Pixabay (CC0)
Putting Together A Business Plan
Before launching your fleet company, you need to put together a solid business plan. A business plan is essential for a number of reasons. Usually, the main reason for having a business plan is to show it to any potential investors in your business. It will be able to show the plans you have in place for your business and tell them exactly what it will be about. It should also detail your targets and goals for your business, as well as your financial plan and how you plan to fund launching your business if they were to invest. Your business plan is also a useful tool to help you stay focused on your goals and give your business direction. It should be used not only for launching your business but also for more long-term plans and steering your business towards long-term goals.
Equipping Your Fleet
Making sure your fleet has the right equipment is essential to ensure before launching your business. If your fleet doesn’t have the right equipment, it could lead to poor business performance, unhappy customers, and difficulty reaching targets. It’s worth weighing up the cost of investment in equipment against the potential it has to help your business function and thrive to help you make financial decisions. Consider the specific equipment your particular fleet business will need and create a checklist to make sure you’re ready before your launch.
For example, what vehicles will you need? If you’re transporting goods, do you have the right kind of vehicles for the weight and quantity of them? If you’re launching a taxi firm, do you have a range of different vehicles for different numbers of people? You also need to consider equipment for other areas of the business such as administration and warehousing.
Vehicle Tracking
When you own a fleet company you need to make sure your vehicles are fitted with a tracking system. This will help to make sure you can keep track of where all your drivers and their vehicles are at all times. It will also help to make sure your drivers are following regulations around fleet companies. For example, you need to make sure your drivers are taking regular breaks to prevent fatigue and tiredness at the wheel. You should also make sure they are following road rules such as speeding limits. When purchasing new vehicles for your fleet, make sure they are all fitted with a vehicle tracker, like the ones from iCompario. This is to ensure your business follows the regulations for your industry to avoid nasty fines and legal action.
Insuring Your Business
You will also need to make sure you have insurance in place for your business to help make sure you’re protected legally and financially. The types of business insurance you’ll need depend on the exact type of fleet company you’re running. However, generally, you need to take out business insurance such as:
- Insurance for the vehicles in your fleet and breakdown cover
- Third-party insurance for your drivers
- Public liability insurance
Having these insurance policies in place as well as any additional policies you think would be useful will help to provide security for your business. It can also help with things such as applying for business loans. If you have investors in your company, they might like to make sure you have insurance policies in place to help secure their investments too.
Establish Your Target Audience
Before setting up your business, you need to do research into the target audience you’re aiming your business at. This will help when it comes to considerations such as developing your business and any unique selling points you may have, your marketing, and pricing. Conducting consumer and market research also helps you to identify what your customers will expect from your business, and how you can make it stand out from your competitors. It will also provide you with valuable data you can use to help you meet customer demand. If there are trends within the industry your business operates in, conducting regular market research will also help you to keep up with these.
Establishing Your Prices
Once you’ve conducted market and consumer research, you’ll be able to establish more clearly the type of pricing you’re going to have. Conducting surveys on your target audience will help you to establish the kind of pricing they would like from your business and what they would be most likely to be happy paying. Comparing your pricing against your competitors will also help you to establish whether your pricing is too low or too high. It could also be worth considering lowering your prices compared to other businesses in your field to make your business more competitive. However, this needs to be balanced against the pressure it would put on your business to drive higher sales to make up for the lower prices.
Hiring Employees
Once you’re ready to launch your business, it’s time to start hiring candidates. As well as hiring drivers for your fleet, you will need to hire management positions to oversee them, and administration staff to handle the day-to-day running of the business and the tasks involved. For example, you may need to hire an accounting team, marketing team, and customer service operators. For some of these positions, you could also consider outsourcing to agencies to avoid the costs of hiring an in-house team. You could also consider automation for tasks such as customer service and accounting.
Consider these points when you prepare to launch your own fleet company. These could help you to ensure that things get off to a great start and that you can gradually begin to grow your business.
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