 |
 |
|||
 |
 |
|
||
 |
|
|||
 |
 |
 |
|
|
 |
 |
|
||
 |
 |
|
||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
 |
|
|||
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Starting a business is tough. And a lot of people get it wrong. But before I talk about that, let's talk about those that get it right. My favorite restaurant of all time is Magianno’s at 516 N. Clark Street near downtown Chicago. They have the best spaghetti and the best salad and bread. I can’t even eat their one-half portion. It’s too much. I’m more for quality rather than quantity but Magianno’s has them both. And the atmosphere is so “Italian”. Of course, you have to have a glass of wine or a brewski for starters and then top it off with their rich chocolate cake. It’s just too irristable. I used to live not too far from the restaurant and last June my brother and I had lunch there after a conference we had been attending. We walked up to the maitre’d and I nicely said,“We’d like one table for two, extremely good-looking gentlemen”. The maitre’d was a nice, elegant elderly man with silver hair – and without missing a beat – he quickly replied, “Okay, where are they?” My brother nearly buckled over on the floor with laughter. And that made our day. So, Magianno’s packs the people in – day and night. They know what they are doing. They have three things going for them. One, they have the right service/product/ atmosphere (and some people think this is all they need to make it in business), two, they are situated in a densely populated area full of hungry people and three, they are in an area where people have the bucks – big bucks. This helps because these people are not looking for McDonalds. These People Get It Wrong Now, let me talk about where some people get it wrong. Many people open a business based upon a passion they have. And they create a terrific product or service. And this is good to some extent. You might know someone yourself who has opened a fish and tackle store because that’s their passion. Or they have opened up a chop shop because motorcycles are their passion. Or they have started a quilting store because that’s their passion. But it takes more than passion or a terrific product or service to succeed in business. Many of these stores go by the wayside. Some die a quick death, some just slowly drain the owner for almost everything they have. Some owners realize the mistake they made. Others have no clue what happened. The owner blames his or her failure on “other” things. Some owners realize too late that there really is not enough population base to support their passion. Or, they find out that the store was located in the wrong area and, worse, it’s located in a bad location where people don’t have the money to spend on their own passion let alone someone else’s. Let’s take, for example, Colfax, Illinois. My aunt used to be in a nursing home there. It’s a small town of about 1,000 people off of Interstate 55, south of Chicago and north of Bloomington. It’s a NICE little town. It’s the type of town where I’d like to find a huge, turn-of-the-century house with a huge porch with a swing where I could just swing all afternoon and watch the grass grow and smell the warm summer rain. I’m serious. What a nice contrast to the hectic pace I sometimes live. Now I suppose that many of the people in Colfax are in farming. Or they work in Bloomington. Colfax is right smack in the middle of corn country. The downtown main street is very nice. But I’ve never seen too many people in the streets. There is some type of drug store with its high ceilings and antiquated furnishings. And they also have a little restaurant area inside. They have probably the best cheeseburgers in the area with freshly sliced onion and tomato as well as some dill pickle, mustard and a little lettuce. Ask me how I know. But it would be tough to start a business in Colfax. Yes, you could open a farm implement or feed store. But then you are competing with the large chain stores. Colfax is not too far from Bloomington which is host to just about anything you want whether you are in farming or otherwise. So, what is a person to do? Well, this is where some people get it right. They find a business that does NOT rely upon the local economy. There are more and more people getting into online businesses. But this is no cakewalk despite how easy some promoters make you think it is. But it’s an alternative. Then there is freight brokering. You can work off your kitchen table or from your front porch swing in Colfax or from any other rural area or small town. And you can be working with customers in southern California, New York City, Kansas City, or North Carolina or Idaho or – you name it. It doesn’t matter where they are and it doesn’t matter where YOU are. You can take your clip board and cell phone with you out on the front porch. The soft summer breeze is gently blowing. You hear an occasional cow bellowing out. You have the smell of the fresh grass, especially after a gentle rain – this is something I miss after being in the southwest for over five years. And so, you call your favorite customer in Akron, Ohio, for example. Yes, he is looking for a flat bed to haul a 48,000 lb. of steel rebar. He wants the pickup in the morning before 9 a.m. and the delivery to be made before 12 noon two days later. You call one of your carriers and tell them you need a truck to pick up in Akron the next day. You give them the rates and the general instructions. Before you get a chance to prepare and fax your confirmation, you get a call from another regular customer. He is a seller for a food processor who has some frozen chicken ready to go. He needs a reefer and they will be loading 980 boxes of frozen chicken, picking up in North Carolina. He gives you the rate. You call your regular carrier in North Carolina and give them the details. As soon as you get a verbal “good to go”, you are ready to go inside and prepare and fax the two confirmations. Sometimes freight brokering this simple. Especially after you have built a network of shippers and carriers. Here Is What Is Important When starting a business, what’s more important than passion is getting in on the right thing. Assuming you have the right industry knowledge and a high level of passion, you have to ask yourself it there is a market for what you are offering. You have to ask yourself if you can reach them easily. Or if THEY can reach you easily. You have to ask yourself a lot of questions. But there is one thing for sure: You will never know with 100% certainty that you will succeed in freight brokering or any other business. So what should you do? You should prepare and position yourself to have the highest probability for success. And getting into a business that you can conduct from anywhere and with anyone else no matter where they are puts you giant steps ahead and keeps you off the business obituary list. Don’t get me wrong. Freight brokering is tough and there is a high turnover. But, in my opinion and based upon my 25 years’ experience working with small business start-ups, the majority of those who fall by the wayside do so because they just don’t give it enough time. There is too much of the mentality that things should happen with lightening speed or at least should happen within a matter of a couple of weeks or months. This might be true for pizza restaurants, donut shops and massage parlors. What Does It Take to Succeed? But for most other businesses, it’s gonna take time. There are some people waiting for the “right time” to get started in business. To be honest, most of these procrastinators will be waiting til the cows come home – and even then they won’t make a move. Then there are some people thinking it will be easier if gas prices come down, for example. The truth of the matter is – it’s still going to take a lot of effort and work to get established even when things are “good”. I don’t know of any business that is easy to start and get established in except for the three I mentioned above. Does that mean you should run out and open either a pizza restaurant or donut shop or massage parlor? Well, maybe so. But then with the pizza restaurant you have to deal with screaming kids every Friday and Saturday night. Other business days you are just sitting around waiting for those screaming kids to come in after the football games. (I sometimes don’t mind screaming kids – but I know some people can’t handle the situation at all). Then what about a donut shop. Well, you get the usual morning rush with people needing their “fix” – coffee and donuts. Then the rest of the day you’ve got the “locals” sitting around just socializing and not buying a thing. The massage parlors? Well, I’ll not touch that right now. But you can make money the first day you open in either of these businesses I mentioned. Now with freight brokering you will wait awhile to get your first money in your hands – at least 30-60 days and perhaps longer. Unless you have customers ready to go, you will start out gradually. But if you give it time, you will start getting repeat business and at some point you’ve got things pretty well automated and you will start raking in recurring income – week after week, month after month. What Is YOUR Passion? If you have a passion to get into freight brokering, don’t let this opportunity pass you by. You may have reasons for not doing so and these reasons may be legitimate. But if you have no legitimate reason for not going into business right now, then here is what you should do; Go to the link right below where it say "Order Now - Freight Broker Training" You can have your materials within 20 minutes after signing up if I’m in the office. Winter and a New Year are rapidly approaching - is there any better time to train and prepare for your very own freight broker business?
Atex Freight Broker Training, Inc. |
| [ Top ] |
