Finding reliable owner-drivers to cover the work

Once you’ve got some customers, you’ll need some couriers.

Before you’ve got some couriers, you’ll probably be the courier as well as the salesperson. This is quite normal. In fact it’s a great way of finding out who is spending money on couriers. For every collection you make from your customer, there’s a delivery to a prospect. Make sure you collect contact names as you go along, and use them in your sales efforts later:

“We do a lot of work for ABC Co who I believe you do quite a lot of business with, and I’m keen to make an appointment with you to discuss helping you solve any delivery problems you may have”.

In addition to relying on your own efforts as a courier, you can use courier work exchange websites to invite bids on the courier work you can’t cover yourself.

If your sales effort is going well, you may soon also want some regular couriers to help you out with the deliveries.

You may be able to form an alliance with one or more local owner-drivers, agreeing to “swap work” in return for sensible prices, and an agreement not to poach customers from each other. This is increasingly the next step for many people who are making the transition from owner-driver to small courier business.

If you have a really steady flow of work, you may well soon want…

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