It’s time to start planning for the new year. With a new president coming into office, hopefully it will make 2025 a good year for you. I have already started to see gas prices falling. That’s a good start.
When my wife and I had our business, we would take a vacation every year between Christmas and New Year’s and plan what our business should look like for the next year. It also gave us a chance to sneak in a mini vacation. We would pick a place like Vegas, get a nice room where we could spend time planning our future. Here are a few things we covered:
Before we got into these things we had to define our business. This would allow us to know what was necessary to make our plan work. These items we cover next are important for your business to be successful and will make it easier to operate your business. As owners here are some things you should do:
Executive Summary – Create a vision for 2025. Write down a mission statement and look at it once a week to see if you are following the plan. Set views and goals for you and the company. 90% of the decisions made were on purpose. There were no accidents. For us, this would allow us to be prepared for everything that came our way.
Who are your customers – As my wife and I planned, we would look at our customers and identify if they were a good customer or a bad customer. If we got tows from them, they were good and we would give them perks like lunches for staff, movie tickets for staff, on holidays we would give them decorations for their office, or donuts. If they were a bad customer and always wanted us to give them perks without giving us tows, we tried to give them to our competitors.
Objectives – As a business you should have objectives. Ours was to make money and have a happy staff. We knew what our monthly expenses were and how much money we needed to cover our bills. We told our drivers how many tows we needed each month, then we gave them the resources necessary to meet their objectives. If a driver towed a lot, he got perks. If a driver did not meet his objectives, we gave him training or equipment that would allow him to improve. We never fired an employee; we did all we could for each employee to make them better. Your staff is your biggest asset, treat them well.
Services Offered – As you define your company you need to know what types of services you want to offer. I learned a long time ago from a successful business owner who told me to take one thing and be the best at it as I could be. I live by this in anything I do. I wanted to tow 1,000 vehicles a month and really concentrated on meeting my goal. I held my own auctions so I could have opened a salvage yard, or a used car lot, but I left that to others. I spent my time being the best that I could be towing cars. Look at your trucks and staff and determine what services you want to offer.
Market and Sales – Let your staff be your sales staff. They talk to your customers every day and they know what you do good, and what you do bad. Look at what your competitor is doing and decide if you want to offer things they might be offering. Go to tow shows and talk to tow companies from other states. See what they offer. Would they offer a service that might work in your company? Call me and I will give you some more ideas.
Financial Plan – make out a monthly calendar for the year. You know what you want your profit to be. You know what your expenses are and know what your revenue is. Look at this every day. Evaluate your drivers and the number of tows they do and see if that’s enough to meet your numbers. If you need more customers to meet your numbers, find more. If you need more drivers, find them. Your numbers will tell you what you need.
Staff requirements – If you have good employees reward them. If they are bad, get rid of them if you can’t make them better. Your employees will make you or break you. Let them know what your goals are as a company, and they will help you reach your goals. Have parties and make working for your company fun.
Plan for the unexpected – During the course of the year, there will always be 1 unexpected event that will impact your company. Build an emergency fun to address these events when the time comes. If you can take measures to prevent bad events like storms that could damage your trucks, put them in a shelter. If it’s a snowstorm, give them the day off so they don’t have accidents. Just try and be prepared for the unexpected.
Community Activities – Do I want to get more involved in the community and spread my company name? I had two incidents that helped me. I was having an auction, and I had a preacher from a suburb in Dallas come and ask if I could find a vehicle for one of his parishioners who had a large family and could not get to church. I found a nice van in my auction that I might have gotten $1,000 for it. I donated it to his church. A month later the newspaper from the city where the church was located showed up and wrote a big article with pictures about my donation. You can’t pay for that kind of advertisement.
It was Christmas, and my daughter who was a teacher in Frisco, Texas, came to me and wanted to borrow a flatbed tow truck. She took the truck to the area where her school was located, put a bunch of teachers on it and drove through the community singing Christmas carols. Frisco is a big suburb of Dallas and words got out about the teachers singing carols. But more importantly for me, they saw my truck, and the name of my company.
Technology Requirements – Is your company growing enough to use a dispatch system? There are some good systems out there, and you should use one that meets the needs of our company. If you already have technology, then what else is out there that will make you a better company. You might want to decide if you need cameras on your trucks. Consider if you have a storage yard, what technology should be installed to make your yard safer. Go to a tow show and see the new products coming out. Talk to other towers and see what they are doing. There are many resources out there. Use them.
Measure Success – When you have a business plan in place you want to know if your plan is working or not, and make changes as needed. My wife and I measured our success by the revenue we made for any given month. Your plan should dictate your revenue by month. If you made your numbers, you were successful. If you are short on revenue for one month, adjust as needed.
Planning for the next year can seem hard but make it fun, and it will help you be successful in 2025.
