How to get proper work at proper rates 101 (For newbies!)

I don't doubt that most regular forum visitors have been watching closely after the many threads here on mtvan which deal with the topics of getting proper regular work at decent rates.

Whilst it is very true that there are tons of courier companies out there which try to convince the subbie to work for peanuts by use of empty promises such as back loads, on going work etc. I do believe that the we the subbie must accept that we bear 50% of the blame for allowing it to happen.

Exchange sites such as MTVan, Courier Exchange etc are great tools to help the subbie get back loads or even make good business contacts, but they are intended to be a boost to your income rather than the bulk of it.

Which leads me to the first point, and possibly most critically important point, that any new subbie or anyone considering becoming a self employed subbie must never fail to understand.

There is no substitue to having your own clients!

The exchange sites are great at what they can do for you once you are out on the road, but in order to generate enough of an income to see you through the quite times without any worries you absolutely MUST have a few direct clients in your area.

This may sound complicated but it's really quite simple. Here is how I began, 3 years ago.

First off you have to have an idea what kind of client you want to be dealing with. For me that was a no-brainer.

I didn't really want to be dealing directly with the company who wishes to ship goods on a regular basis such manufacturers, printers, lawyers etc. Simply because as a one man band, they wouldn't want to deal directly with me either. After all, how can I alone possibly cover all their work.

I also didn't want to deal directly with Joe Public. So my target clients are other courier companies.

I quickly learned that the bigger they are the greater the pressure is to bow to their terms, conditions and rates.

So the simple, but absolutely essential thing to do was find the smaller independent courier companies who prefer to deal with a small but reliable base of regular subbies.

So here it is, the first step to building up your own regular base of clients is to make sure that you have photo copies of your insurances, licence etc all made up into little packs that you can drop off at each of the offices/warehouses you are going to visit.

Next, jump on the net and do a quick search for all the industrial/trading/business estates within a 30-40 mile radius of your location and each day visit one of them.

Go round the whole trading estate and introduce yourself to the people operating out of there and present your service.

Next day, another trading estate and another estate the day after.

Why can't you just google the companies and call them? Simple, there are tons of courier companies out there who do not advertise themselves online. Many of them began simply through providing a courier service for a friend of theirs who ran a factory or small business. So have never needed to have an online prescence.

These are the companies that most value the services provided by a good reliable courier and are less likely to penny pinching when it comes to rates and paying up.

It can take a couple of months, but before long you WILL get calls. You will get regular work. It will be at decent rates and you won't have to keep pushing to get paid.

Just make sure that you and your van are presentable. Have all the necessary information to hand them and just don't give up.

As a final note, if you as the new subbie can't be bothered to get up and do this most basic step, then courier work is probably not for you.

All well and good Scott, but I imagine there are not many 'independant' new starters who can wait 60 or 90 days+ to get paid for work carried out. Also nearly all companies wanting an urgent delivery require it done immediately, not easy for a one man band to provide a service requiring alot of vans!

Thanks for that! Really useful! Have a great day!

Sounds to me like your on the verge of writing a bible.

... And don't register someone else business at your address, its a bit stupid don't you think?

Its a balancing act. We all need couriers be it enduser, courier company or one man band, we all need help at some point to cover extra work. Courier Companies have more resources than owner divers so, although not as cheap, they can offer availability and continuity where perhaps the owner driver cannot. Its up to the enduser as to what is the most important to them... Price or availability?, and its up to the owner driver what It is he wants. You can either work for us lot, letting us deal with payment issues, marketing costs, ensuring availability by having a databse of couriers to call on, and wait for us to call you, and hope that, by doing a good job you will continue to get that call, or you can do as we do, and take on the day to day hassle of all the above and more. Some do a combination of the two, some are happy for us to take on the stress and just drive. The beaut of this industy is there is room for all.

MK BIKES said:

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... And don't register someone else business at your address, its a bit stupid don't you think?

.... yawn

RAPID LIGHT TRANSPORT LTD. said:

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All well and good Scott, but I imagine there are not many 'independant' new starters who can wait 60 or 90 days+ to get paid for work carried out. Also nearly all companies wanting an urgent delivery require it done immediately, not easy for a one man band to provide a service requiring alot of vans!

Rapid,

That's precisely the advantage with the smaller independants.

They are more open to negotiation of rates and terms.

Also, since they are not expecting you to cover all their work. They realise you are a one man operation and therefor respect the fact that if you are already on a job for someone else they have to keep going down their list.

Keep yourself to a small group of independent courier companies and you'll never have a problem, even if you have to turn down a job now and again.

In fact, on quite a few occasions I have had to turn down a job from one company only to have them call me later to pick up a load coming back from I was going.

Speed Couriers Nationwide Ltd said:

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Its a balancing act. We all need couriers be it enduser, courier company or one man band, we all need help at some point to cover extra work. Courier Companies have more resources than owner divers so, although not as cheap, they can offer availability and continuity where perhaps the owner driver cannot. Its up to the enduser as to what is the most important to them... Price or availability?, and its up to the owner driver what It is he wants. You can either work for us lot, letting us deal with payment issues, marketing costs, ensuring availability by having a databse of couriers to call on, and wait for us to call you, and hope that, by doing a good job you will continue to get that call, or you can do as we do, and take on the day to day hassle of all the above and more. Some do a combination of the two, some are happy for us to take on the stress and just drive. The beaut of this industy is there is room for all.

Hi Rob, this is exactly the crux of my point.

For the courier driver/subbie, whilst the idea of building to a company like yourself is often the target. The driver/subbie has to be realistic when starting out.

As a one man band, it is virtually impossible to maintain even a single end user client. Simply because there are very few end user companies who have just the right amount of work to keep a single driver busy, but a guaranteed amount of work to keep 2-3 drivers busy.

Add in all the marketing etc as you have mentioned and it should be obvious to anyone starting out as a subbie that the costs, effort and viability would (in the circumstances of most subbies) be beyond their scope.

Which is why I believe they should concentrate more, initially, on working with courier companies. As you have pointed out, you are relying on them calling you in the first place. But if you have presented yourself well, given them all the information they need about you and not turned up in a shed of a van. Then there is no reason for them not to. What Peter (my colleague) and I found was that within 1-1 1/2 months. Around 3 of the companies we approached began calling us.

Maybe they had a subbie on holiday, maybe a subbie let them down (again). I don't know! But we grabbed the opportunity, made sure we did a good job. Always kept in contact and made sure we left a good impression on the courier company that used us, the client we picked up from and the cusomter we delivered to.

We sat down last year and actually reduced the number of companies we worked for based on their rates and payment terms. We now only work with the 3 which pay us our rates, on our terms and on time. Whilst business was a bit quiet over Christmas and New Year, we have been chock a block since early February this year.

As I stated in the headline, this whole thread is meant for the newbie courier. In the hope that they can find themselves some decent business via decent companies who understand the value to their business of a good subbie driver. Rather than end up thinking that 50-65pplm is the going rate simply because that's all that Rico, DHL and a certain other company :-) are prepared to pay.

:-)

MK BIKES said:

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... And don't register someone else business at your address, its a bit stupid don't you think?

I'd imagine that such a thing might be illegal unless you had the express written consent of the property owner!

Which you can't guarantee if the occupant of said address is the tenant and not the legal householder :-)

But please let's allow this thread to be about giving the newbies some genuine advice that just might help prevent them from losing their hard earned savings/retirement lump sum/redundancy package to companies that want them to work at rates which are unworkable based on empty promises of back loads. Or because they need to prove themselves "Then" get a higher rate, or the "our customer only pays" excuses.

:-)

My main purpose in posting this message is really to inform the new courier driver that:

A: Their main source of income should be from their own customer base, be it an end user or another courier company.

B: Smaller, independent courier companies tend to pay better than the big boys as they are the ones that are called in when the "Big boys" fail to deliver and also know how to better value and appreciate a good service.

C: Exchange sites are for giving an extra boost to the subbies income. They are NOT intended to be the main source of income. In some rare circumstances some people make these sites work as their main source, but these people in my experience tend to be those that seem to never be able to take a holiday as they can't get their hand into their back pocket for their wallet because there is a van surgically attached to "that area" :-). There are always exceptions to the rule however!

D: Courier companies which are just looking for the absolute cheapest price are probably best avoided. Sure they may pay the rate quoted by some subbies, but they will only do that when they are right down to the wire after having waited till the latest possible time to see if they get a cheaper quote. That's a company that is doing wrong both by the subbie and their own client. (The end client is paying for someone to be there within the hour in the majority of cases!). When you find a courier company that gives you loads of excuses why they can't possibly pay a proper rate, that's a company that you'll never get a decent rate from. Don't let them pull the wool over your eyes guys.

Most importantly for the subbie!

E: If you, the subbie, don't get your little posterior pink thing out there, get face to face contact with the companies and people you are hoping to get work from, introduce yourself and impress; You might as well send your van back and save yourself the hassle and expense.

You are looking to get into a customer facing role! So you have be prepared, confident and capable of dealing amiably, respectfully, friendly and professionally with your client (the courier company), their client (the company which ordered the delivery) and the client of the client of YOUR client (the company that ordered the goods from the company that ordered the delivery from the company that gave you the job!). So if you can't walk in to your target client and make a good impression on them, how can you make a good impression on the rest of the chain?

I suppose I should end this with a simple disclaimer that these are my opinions alone based on my experiences of this industry over the last 3 years, neither MTvan or any company associated with or registered to it's services bears any responsibility for my own personal opinion.

:-)

Scott.

I should also point out that when my colleague and I began in this industry in 2011 we operated as a two man, one van crew.

My colleague drove, I took care of the rest.

It took us a couple of years, but we are now both in our own vans operating our own businesses and both doing well. Mainly because even as individual businesses we continue to collaborate our efforts.

We achieved this through the advice which I have posted above.

AJM sameday Couriers said:

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Sounds to me like your on the verge of writing a bible.

No bible here AJM :-). I just felt a bit a compulsion to write that out simply because I am becoming weary of two things.

1: Certain courier companies (both the big boys and the "not so big as they think they are but hoping to get bought out by one of the big boys!) that get contracts by promising low prices because they are prepared to hold up their customers goods till the last moment in order to get the best possible back load price whilst still charging their customer full whack. Let's say, the profiteers, to be polite.

2: Newbie, and even not so newbie subbies who don't realise that if you don't get up of your backside and hunt down the REAL courier companies which value both the importance of their customers goods and the service of the courier who delivers them, then they probably deserve "to earn only a small profit or even a small loss" as was suggested by another member in another thread.

As such, my post is 100% altruistic.

I have no bible to sell.

Scott.

I ought to apologise for some of my grammar and spelling in my posts above. I had been working since 7:30 Tuesday morning and got back home at 1:30am today.

With a few hours break in between I might add.

A great post Scott, with some good advice. I suppose I class myself as a not so new Newbie. One important point, many newbies don't know what price per mile to come in at. I've had a couple of jobs on here but quoted just enough to pay a bit more than the "Big Boy" I sub contract to. I worry if I'm undercutting the rest of you as no way do I want to drive prices downwards. I want to earn a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. Is anyone prepared to say what sort of price is fair to come in at so we can all earn a decent living? As regards other independents, my idea is to contact local courier and even large transport firms and offer a service to compliment their own.

Adrian, only you can answer that question, but there are enough threads on here, even today, that give you an idea

Hi Garnham, unfortunately very few will be happy to reveal their actual charge, including myself.

Simply because it only allows the uninsured among us to know how low to aim to get the work.

If the rate you are quoting and getting works for you, that's all you need.

But, the general equation is as follows.

The annual cost of your Van Finance Payments(if applicable) or the cost of replacing your van every 3 years. The annual cost of your H&R and GIT insurances. The annual cost of your Road tax. The annual cost of your yearly maintenance, oil filters, fuel filters, tyres, the whole shebang. The annual cost of keeping your van clean if you don't do it yourself.

Add that all up, divide it by the 80-100,000 miles you would hope to drive in the year. Add in the fuel cost of your van per mile.

That's more or less (not exactly) what your van is going to cost you per mile.

Now, on average you will only be getting paid for 50% of those 80-100,000 miles per year.

So double the ppm figure you just calculated. That's your estimated annual costs.

Now decide how much you expect to earn out of your hard effort in order to pay your annual running costs and your living costs together.

Divide that figure by the 80-100,000 per year and that's your pplm charge.

It all depends on your individual situation :-)

Scott Reid said:

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Hi Garnham, unfortunately very few will be happy to reveal their actual charge, including myself.

Simply because it only allows the uninsured among us to know how low to aim to get the work.

If the rate you are quoting and getting works for you, that's all you need.

But, the general equation is as follows.

The annual cost of your Van Finance Payments(if applicable) or the cost of replacing your van every 3 years. The annual cost of your H&R and GIT insurances. The annual cost of your Road tax. The annual cost of your yearly maintenance, oil filters, fuel filters, tyres, the whole shebang. The annual cost of keeping your van clean if you don't do it yourself.

Add that all up, divide it by the 80-100,000 miles you would hope to drive in the year. Add in the fuel cost of your van per mile.

That's more or less (not exactly) what your van is going to cost you per mile.

Now, on average you will only be getting paid for 50% of those 80-100,000 miles per year.

So double the ppm figure you just calculated. That's your estimated annual costs.

Now decide how much you expect to earn out of your hard effort in order to pay your annual running costs and your living costs together.

Divide that figure by the 80-100,000 per year and that's your pplm charge.

It all depends on your individual situation :-)

"So double the ppm figure you just calculated. That's your estimated annual costs."

Should read, double the ppm figure your just calculated. That's your estimated costs per loaded mile.

Thanks for that Scott. Thank goodness for calculators and computers. It is hard to hit it spot on but one thing I do know, none of us will end up millionaires in the near future.

Not if you take jobs that only pay £0.66pplm. That's for sure.