It's a Team's Life

Business Review-Q3

Business Review

It’s that time of year again. The third quarter of the year has passed. Have you been keeping up with how your business is doing? Do you base it on how much money is in your bank accounts? Or do you have systems in place to know from week to week, month to month or quarter to quarter how your business is doing?

I must admit that I have not been as diligent as I could be with keeping up on our business numbers. Maybe because I know that this year has been more of a challenge for us as compared to years past. When friends and family or other truck drivers ask us how we are doing this year I say,” this year will probably be one of our worst years in trucking.” After making this comment I add, “but we have enough and we have even been able to set a little aside in savings.” Do you feel like you have enough? Have you still been able to put something into savings for truck maintenance or other business needs? What are you doing to keep your business profitable?

There are several things that we have done to help us feel safe despite our lower revenues this year. The first thing we did was get out of debt. When we first got into trucking we had so much personal and business debt. Over time, we paid off all debt except our house and our current semi has a loan on it as well. We do use credit cards to make nearly all of our purchases and we pay them off every month to avoid any interest being added to the balance. 

The other thing we did and continue to do is save. When our revenue was strong in years past, we saved more so that when the lean years come (and they always will!) we had savings to get us through. How do we save and pay off debt at the same time? I came across a book several years ago titled “Profit First” by Mike Michalowicz. By following many of the ideas in this book we were able to both pay off debt and save very quickly. I recommend this book often.

This is one of those years that we have heard of trucking companies going out of business. Some of these businesses are one-truck operations while others have hundreds of trucks in the fleet. This has happened more than once in our 12 years of operation. This is a natural ebb and flow that takes place as the economy changes. While I understand this, it still makes me sad to see businesses close their doors. Let’s hope that next year our economy improves and all trucking businesses see improvements in their profit and loss statements.

Here’s to millions of safe and PROFITABLE miles.

Kelly Plumb