This fireside chat recap is from FreightWaves’ Small Fleet & Owner-Operator Summit on Wednesday.
FIRESIDE CHAT TOPIC: Bear market survival guide: Insights from an industry expert
DETAILS: Grace Sharkey speaks with expert Adam Wingfield about business strategies for surviving a bear trucking market. Wingfield reviews ways to manage costs and build relationships for new business, as well as what owner-operators can do to differentiate themselves from competitors.
SPEAKER: Adam Wingfield, founder and managing director of Innovative Logistics Group.
BIO: Wingfield is a leading figure in the logistics industry, providing support and education for anyone in the trucking industry and helping them become industry leaders as well. Under his leadership, Innovative Logistics has become a trusted partner for carriers, owner-operators, brokers and dispatchers looking for solutions that are both innovative and reliable.
KEY QUOTES FROM WINGFIELD:
On controlling costs: “Trucking as a business is not about what you make, it’s about what you don’t spend. Margin control is so important on the small carrier side that you want to look at your incremental costs and you want to start with your most important variable expenses.”
On building relationships during hard times: “You build relationships in the good times, but you also have got to build relationships in the bad times. What I find is a lot of owner-operators don’t take this time to be really transparent and build relationships.”
On the importance of contracted freight: “One of the things I tell folks to prepare for any type of market is always to make sure you are going out and trying to solicit your own customers. … I know people that have 30 to 40 trucks that they purchased just running off the spot market, and now that is very, very tough to do.”
Read more
How technology can help owner-operators manage costs, compliance
‘State of Freight’ for April: Overcapacity, weak spot rates
So this is what the bottom of the freight market feels like?
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