As a commercial truck buyer, you are probably always looking for new strategies to entice and convince ex-owners to sell you their rigs for a great price. Unfortunately, as more and more owners are looking to hold on to their trucks for longer than ever, thanks to the uncertain economic conditions facing the world, it seems to have become far more challenging than ever before. However, there are still many strategies you can use to persuade these folks to sell to you for a reasonable price. This article will look at a few different techniques for drawing in the right people who are prepared to sell their trucks at a price that will enable you to make a tidy profit when you resell them.
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Start By Identifying Your Target Market And Their Needs
Before you head out to Facebook or Google and drop a fortune on non-performing ads, your first step should be to evaluate your target market and determine their needs. When it comes to the specifics of buying and selling trucks, you can find out more information from other companies that already participate in the practice. Needless to say, your target market will likely be someone who fits the following profile:
- Their truck is their only tangible asset
- They have or are in the process of buying a new rig
- They need cash fast for a variety of reasons
- It’s broken down beyond repair, and they want to recoup something from it
- They are getting out of the game and want to get some cash to put toward new ventures (or retirement)
However, this is merely a small selection of reasons, and your job will be to find these people to develop a customized marketing strategy around them. Once you have a good idea of who you are targeting, you can move on to the next step and begin creating a message that will appeal to these sellers.
Create A Clear And Concise Message That Highlights The Benefits Of Your Truck-Buying Service
At the end of the day, all anyone really has is their reputation, which is often hard-earned but readily lost. Consequently, you should begin crafting a message highlighting why a seller should come to you instead of using another service. This doesn’t mean trashing your competition but instead leaning on your advantages over them to convince them to come to you. Some ideas for accomplishing this include:
- Make it relevant: People who need cash for an expedited sale aren’t often in the mood to be messed around. Therefore, your message must maintain relevance and avoid veering into unrelated topics.
- Keep it concise and to the point: Just like the last point, if you want to attract a specific type of seller, your message must be clear and obvious about what you are offering. You run the risk of losing customers by obfuscating too much.
- Ensure it’s original: While originality can be challenging in this kind of industry, you should do your best to ensure your message is appealing.
- Remain humble but lean on your advantages: Since truck drivers tend to be modest people, if you sound too confident, they might believe you to be telling the truth. Nonetheless, you have to find the right balance of modesty and intersperse it with a touch of bragging!
- Never lie: Offering the world but failing to deliver is a fast track to losing your reputation, as discussed in the previous section.
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Utilize Online Platforms Such As Social Media And Trucking Forums To Promote Your Business
Almost all businesses, regardless of industry, have found social media to be invaluable to their marketing efforts. However, outside of the usual suspects, like Facebook et al., there are additional specialized options that you can leverage to your advantage. For instance, you can search for auto forums and go as deep down the rabbit hole as you want. Nonetheless, the more niche you go, the better your results will be. For example, if you advertise that you buy trucks for cash on a Toyota Supra forum, chances are pretty low that you’ll get any business! However, once you have honed your message to a sharp point and are ready to pull the trigger, you can invest some money and set up ads targeting those with the highest potential to convert.
Offer Incentives To Attract Sellers, Such As Free Appraisals Or Towing Services
One way you can differentiate your business from similar ones is to offer incentives specific to your service. This might include options like a free appraisal, whereby you will send a representative over to provide a real-world price rather than one over the phone or email. Although you will have to limit this to those who have qualified and are in your vicinity, a physical appraisal has two benefits:
- You’ll offer them individualized service.
- You will get an idea of what you can reasonably offer without having to renege on a price if the customer is economical with the truth.
However, if you think outside the box and use some imagination, you can come up with plenty of relevant incentives that should attract them to sell their truck to you.
Provide Exceptional Customer Service To Build Trust And Loyalty With Both Buyers And Sellers
Almost all businesses live or die on the quality of their customer service, so if you want to be in the former category, you might want to examine your customer service and get it up to standard. While you don’t need to be on the same level as The Ritz-Carlton, a little courtesy can go a long way. This means picking up the phone during opening hours, replying to messages, offering a great price, picking up the truck when scheduled, thanking people for their business, etc. Even if you are unable to come to a deal with a potential lead, if you are courteous enough, they may recommend you to a buddy in a similar situation, giving you referral leads with minimal effort.
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Develop A Reputation For Offering Fair And Competitive Prices
If you are only out to scalp people and make as much profit as possible, word will quickly spread and cause sales to decline more rapidly than you might think. While it’s not unreasonable to expect to make a profit when you go on to resell the truck, you also need to be aware that the people you purchase from are real people, sometimes in challenging situations. Moreover, if a customer is unhappy with a valuation, you should remain calm and courteous and explain to them how you arrived at that number. Once they understand that you have additional costs to bear, they may come around and change their tune.
Utilize Data Analytics To Determine Which Advertising Channels Are Most Effective For Your Business
Data is used in almost all businesses worldwide because it’s highly effective at saving money and boosting revenue. It allows you to dig deeply into the numbers and see where you’re going wrong or what’s going right. While you might think data analytics is a tad overkill for attracting sellers, you’d be surprised at how you can use it to your advantage. For starters, you have the inbuilt analytics that come with most advertising platforms, most notably Facebook. Here, you can test different ads against each other, drop the non-performing ones, and allocate more cash to the highest-converting ones. This will save you enormous amounts of money in the long run and help you attract those who are most likely to convert. Furthermore, you can perform manual research to check the current prices of trucks, which should also assist you when it comes to valuations.
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Stay Up-To-Date With Industry Trends And Adjust Your Advertising Strategy As Needed
The businesses that stand still are those that find themselves overtaken by rivals and dying a slow death. That might sound hyperbolic initially, but if you want to succeed in this environment, you must get your game face on and hustle hard. Luckily, keeping up with the latest trends doesn’t have to be hard if you put in the effort. If you do, you will be rewarded with more business and possibly even develop new revenue streams. For example, instead of turning away trucks you believe are beyond repair, you could purchase them and strip them for parts. Then, you could establish a department within your business that deals with parts supplies and sell each component for more than the truck as a whole! Furthermore, the more effort you put into research, the more likely it is that you can eke out a little bit more money by purchasing trucks that are in higher demand or look as though their popularity might be resurging, etc.
Continuously Evaluate And Improve Your Advertising And Marketing Efforts
Every marketing campaign needs some work to assess current initiatives and ensure that you aren’t investing in those that are beneficial and aren’t throwing good money after bad. It only takes a small amount of time each day to check on your campaigns to see if they’re working and note your most successful endeavors for use in other campaigns down the line.
It takes work to purchase vehicles for cash; there is no getting around it. Yet, if you invest time in attracting new clients, you should discover that your business begins to thrive. Also, if you put in the effort to identify additional revenue sources, such as selling parts, you will increase your company’s profitability, taking it to new heights.
