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Good, bad but never boring
Page 68
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We catch up with CM'S first Logistically Speaking
columnist, Rob Salter, to
find out how his business is faring a year on.
It's been a funny old time since I last wrote in these pages. We were just coming up to the pre-Christmas rush and had work flooding in. In fact my fleet had swollen to five trucks with four drivers and myself taking to the road.We had promises from one customer of guaranteed work for all of this year for two of our trucks so we bent over backwards to help them.
Inevitably a few days after Christmas we were told that we were no longer needed —so much for loyalty.
All this heralded the usual January and February slump and at the beginning of February I had to lay one driver off and send his truck back.This was a pattern that repeated itself throughout the year, which leaves me at the moment with three trucks and three drivers including myself.
It's been a strange year workwise. One day we'll be incredibly busy with the phone ringing off the hook and work enough for 20 trucks; the next day they'll all be parked up waiting for customers to call Of course even though my trucks aren't moving I still have overheads and drivers to pay which makes life difficult.That said I had expected August Lobe the usual dreadful month, but instead I found business up 20% on the year before. Like I said, it's been an impossible year to predict.
However, given the currently soaring price of fuel I've reached a bit of a crossroads. Do I carry on and hope to weather the storm with the obvious risk of losing my shirt—or do I decide to downsize now, go back to running just the one truck and hope to grow the fleet again once the economy picks up?
Taking a big step backwards isn't the easiest thing to do, but you have to strip all the emotion out of it. I realise that it's not a case of me having done something wrong with the business— it's the state of the industry as a whole that's at fault. One thing's for sure however: whatever I chose I'll never regret leaving the comfort of a traffic office —it's a life! know I could never go back too. If! hadn't made the leap then I would have always been left wondering: What if...?
At least now I know. •