Find New Trucking Customers With This One Weird Trick!

Don’t you just hate those headlines? We do too. To find new trucking customers for your trucking company doesn’t need a weird trick. Does it? What we’ve got to help you find new customers for your business isn’t obvious, but this simple approach is one you might not have considered yet..

Is It That Easy?

Ask for a referral.

Allen Campbell, one of our founders and our veteran truck driver, told this story

I reached out to a local brick company to see if they needed a trucking company to handle freight. The company said they don’t arrange truckers, their customers handle that. But the brick company offered to put out my trucking company info on blast to his customers. Within weeks, I had multiple new customers looking for shippers to bring bricks from the brickyard to their locations. Three companies – including the largest brick vendor in Chicago and northeastern Illinois – hired my trucking company to haul bricks. That’s when I got my brokerage authority – I had too many loads for my fleet to handle.

Hauling for Wholesalers

Allen started by reaching out to local industries rather than relying solely on load boards. Every community has some need for truckers. Even rural areas need truckers to haul the food they grow. It’s just a matter for discovering what companies exist near your home base.

How do you find them?

1. Talk to your current customers. Would they recommend you to their customers? Customers who are wholesalers – they sell to other businesses which will sell the products to other customers – may be ideal customers to refer you. Like Allen’s situation above, the power of a personal referral makes a huge difference.
2. Talk to the local government and agencies. Mayors and chambers of commerce might be a good place to start. They’ll know local industries and may even be able to arrange an introduction to a company owner, if you don’t meet them yourself at an event.
3. Read the local paper. Your neighbors may work for a company that needs truckers to haul their goods. The business section – or LinkedIn – may have connections that will introduce your trucking company to their shipping manager. New trucking customers aren’t hiding – they’re where they’ve always been. Finding someone to open the door
4. Look further away than your immediate neighborhood. If an hour’s drive from home provides more potential customers, why not reach out to them? In Allen’s story, the brickyard he hauled for was an hour away from his home. By expanding his range, he was able to find an unexpected and profitable lane that led to the expansion of his trucking company.
5. Specialized trailers for special customers. Knowing the area industries might affect rig decisions like buying a reefer rather than a flatbed.

Reputations Matter With New Trucking Customers

After the introduction, starting a long-term relationship with new trucking customers depends on the trucker. Make the good first impression by being on time, showing up with a clean and ready rig, and handling the details of the load as you agreed in the ret con, retains customers. Over time, a solid partnership can develop as the shipper learns to know, like, and trust your trucking company.

Instead of depending on a load board, find the customers who will work with you time after time instead of bidding for a broker online. It’s more profitable for a trucking company to retain a customer than find a new one.

One weird trick? Nope, not at all.

Making connections that build business relationships isn’t new, and it isn’t weird, but it does work.