Someday You Might Want to Branch Out
Once upon a time… it was just you.
You remember the moment. You were travelling along the open road and tapping the wheel with your left index finger listening to that one song – that one song that would put you in the moment.
You knew how to drive. You knew how to run your own trucking business of one.
And you smiled and you asked yourself
‘Why Not Me?”
You thought about how others were able to do it. And you never really thought that it would be possible, but after some conversations with these guys, you wondered why you couldn’t run your own crew, your own small fleet when they seemed to be able to do it – and you said to yourself
‘I’m just as good as the next guy.’
You leaned forward on the steering wheel – hands flat across the top and looked up high and wide out the front window. You could see the whole wide world out there, and you thought to yourself that your life can be much more than your own hutch, your own cab. No doubt you loved your cab, it was your workplace, your sanctuary in a fast moving world, attached to something that was your very own.
But you knew it was time.
You thought about the pieces of the puzzle that were missing?
‘I can get the guys,’ you said to yourself. My cousin. The other guys that were always complaining that they were being treated unfairly.
They would always take counsel in you. They were the ones that came to you. Some of them had their own rigs too.
‘We can get the loads from the brokers. That will always be a part of it – they got the cash to you quickly so you could get the next load. But you could also do some direct business if only you had a way to quote, manage orders do some invoicing and pay the guys.’
Your wife was running your office. She was amazing – getting the kids to school in the morning and taking care of the kids while you were gone. Grandma and Grandpa were a great help too. But she hated the commute to work and being out of her community when the kids needed her. She always wished she could just work on something that was closer to home. She was an amazing administrator, a great logistician. You remembered the trip you once took across the continent when you were younger – no kids. It was fun, it seemed to be a lot more fun in those days – maybe a lot simpler.
‘But still. You wondered if you were just going to keep on giving it day-in and day-out rather than doing you ‘own thing’ – and doing it ‘your own way’.
She was good at computers – better than you were. You weren’t bad but you weren’t as organized as she was. She had worked with Excel at work and got pretty good with spreadsheets. Perhaps she could track the details – make sure the business was making money.
And as you lay awake at night watching TV in your Hutch – you hit the Wifi at the truck stop and you searched online for something that just might help you make that leap. Perhaps there was something that could help you tie it all together. If only there was…
Something that would track your customer interactions and dealings.
Something you that could help send out quotes and take orders.
Something that could track your all your orders and dispatches.
Something that tracked your mileage – and could help you with paying your taxes.
Something that made sure you would be onside with the FMCSA and the DOT if they ever started knocking on your door.
Something that would invoice the customer and keep track of what is owed to you.
Something that would help you with paying your drivers – and track what was still owing.
Man, there is a lot to do in running this business. You thought you might need a CRM system. You thought you would need a Dispatching system. You thought you might need an Accounting system for all your Orders and your Invoicing.
And you wondered what it would all cost. And you wondered if you could put all these pieces together. If you could only find an ‘all-in-one system’ that was online so that you could access your information from anywhere; a system that you didn’t cost an ‘arm and a leg’ for upfront software licenses and implementations.
So you Googled
And there you saw it.
Tailwind Transportation Software.
You ‘Signed up for Trial’.
You put down your tablet.
You Skyped your wife. You looked on the screen as the kids crowded the picture on either side of her. You were home while not being at home. It helped you understand why you were sitting at some roadside stop in Iowa. But you knew that it wasn’t just another trip. It wasn’t just another load. It wasn’t just another paycheck.
It was the first day of a new life for you in your new business – for you and your family.
And as the kids kissed you through the screen and you dabbed your two fingers on your lips and placed them against the screen and your kids faces you promised yourself that you were going to do something great for them… for all of them.
As they left the room and you looked into your wife’s eyes – those tired eyes – you asked how her day was. And as you listened to highs and lows of her work and home life, you sighed because of the distance between you. And you said.
“I just did something different today honey. I just visited Tailwind Transportation Software’s website”
“What website?”
“Tailwind Transportation Software. Their website. I signed up on a trial. I think you should go visit it.
“About what?”
“What we were talking about. Our own business. It looks like it can do all the things we need it to do – tie it all together. It’s online. It’s paid monthly and they give you lots of help with how to use it. Take a look at it and we can talk when I get home Friday”
“Okay – gotta go to bed now.”
“Okay – love you.”
“Love you too”
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