Do you really need a business plan?

I didn't have a business plan per say. Other than make money. You'll figure out the numbers or you will go broke. Period.

 

The ones who aren't constantly being chased by the repo man or bill collectors have a business plan.

 

You don't need to have a formal business plan but you need to have a clearly defined set of goals. Your plan in order to achieve those goals. As long as everything is reasonable that should be all you need. A 100 page professionally prepared business plan doesn't mean you will succeed and something written on a ####tail napkin can. Hard work is the biggest piece for success and a fair deal of luck when you are getting started out.

 

I usually have about 10 of them.... discard a few that don't pan out, add a few more... I figure one day maybe I'll put one together that actually makes money.

In all seriousness though, you need numbers on paper. A spreadsheet is even better. I would suggest keeping your timed expenses seperate from your mileage and mileage based expenses. That way you can accurately compare different opportunities regardless of whether they are short or long hauls, paying by the hour, etc... I also suggest keeping an 'overall' record of every dime you spend vs. every penny earned. If you are spreadsheet savvy, make a line graph out of it. It really helps when looking back over a year see where you were doing better than others or pinpoint maybe where you were overspending on unnecessary items, etc... Also, I don't know it for a fact because I'm like you I didn't borrow any money from a banker. But I figure if a good opportunity comes along where I need to buy more equipment and I need a loan, then all this record keeping should help me to show a banker in black and white why I need the loan and how I intend to pay it back. you know, like I can show somebody I know what I'm talking about if I have too.

 

Didnt borrow money either however I did write up a business plan. It was about 16 pages long including spreadsheets. Occasionally I will reference it. I wouldnt say it was the most helpful thing I did however I am very glad that I did it and can reference back to stuff occasionally. At least put down on paper: Equipment type, target lanes to run ( all 48 or certain regions ) and how many miles you expect to run, days total, and the expected fuel consumption per week, month, year, etc. What direct shippers are you going to target?..I was pretty dead on about the gross revenue figure however expenses were higher than I had allowed for.

The spreadsheets put a lot of things in perspective for you...for example ( even with no loan ) you still have the fixed costs. IRS 2290 = $550.00 per year, Insurance ( mine was $6186 for one Freightliner, two dry vans, Cargo, etc ) which came out to $17.00 a day, plus the plate itself was a cool $1286 or $3.56 a day. If the truck wasn't running it still cost $21.56 a day to look at it in the yard. The spreadsheet can tell you all the stuff quickly. Who is going to keep the "books" and track down the missing payments?

Most of this stuff you can keep in your head however I strongly recommend doing a business plan as it is a great exercise! Good luck with your own authority and as you well know somebody on this forum generally has the answer!

 

You have to decide what works for you and your business. Mine is goal, milestone , cash flow and revenue orientated. I use both my head and a 20 page spread sheet to keep track if the business.

 

When you plan how to smoothly handle the hard times you ain't playing catch up with the good times. Any successful business maps out how they operate and sets goals to achieve.

Trucking has too many surprises and miscellaneous expenses not to have safeguards in place like reserve accounts. If you live load to load you'll get eaten up.

Spreadsheets are great for record keeping. Especially at tax time. Even a 5 year or 10 year plan on where you want to be and how you plan to get there. Do you want to expand and buy more trucks? You have to have a plan. The magic truck fairy doesn't show up.

 

Also you may not be planning to Borrow now, but times change and things happen and woops now I need a loan! so it is really a good idea

 

If you don't know where you are going,



how do you know when you've arrived ?