A transport commission business is a lucrative business idea for you if you want to make decent earnings without a huge investment. Yes, a transport commission business is one such business that can be started with the least amount of investment. You don’t have to invest your money in purchasing trucks to complete the booking. However, you just have to act as a mediator between a truck supplier company and the client.
To become a successful commission agent, you must have loads(goods) and trucks available on time. The best part about this business is that you get the payment immediately. Your payment gets delayed only in some of the rare cases; for example, if you are working with a corporate and the payment cycle is on monthly basis or after booking completion.
Transport commission agents play an important role in the logistics industry as over 80% of truck companies need the assistance of commission agents to run their business.
There are multiple tasks in the transport commission business that you need to handle with finesse. Therefore, you must use a reliable agent management system like freight broker software.
In this blog, you will further learn about different ways of acquiring loads and clients for making more commission income.
How to Get Loading/Client?
Contact With Local Transporter
Being a commission agent, you must deal with local transporters to get carriers on time. If you don’t have trucks or carriers to transport the load, then you cannot become a successful commission agent. You are responsible to complete the booking on time. If you are unable to do so, you will have to bear the loss as your client will not pay you at all. Therefore, contact your local transporter so you can get their carriers for transportation.
With the timely availability of loads and trucks, you can make a handsome amount of commission income.
When you work as a commission agent, you can get any kind of load, including part truckload, FTL, etc. Therefore, you must contact a local transporter that offers all kinds of carriers. You need to act smartly to make the maximum amount of commission.
When it comes to dealing with a local transporter, you need to consider a few points. First things first, you have to focus on their experience in the industry. The transportation company that you are choosing must be an expert at handling goods and legal requirements during the journey.
Secondly, always choose a transporter that can handle diverse business requirements; for example, the transportation needs of a white good company will be different from a food company. Therefore, if it can handle different business needs, you don’t have to spend time contacting multiple local transporters. Last but not least, concentrate on the pricing factor and payment policy. Make sure you have all the information about their payment structure, including advance payment and modes.
(b) Contract with Logistics, E-Commerce Logistics
When it comes to customer acquisition for your transport commission business, you must deal with e-commerce logistics companies. As you’re already witnessing the growth of e-commerce companies in India, you can grab this chance to make your transport commission business successful.
By delivering efficient services to the e-commerce companies, you can help them earn more profits, which in turn help you make more money as commission income. When you provide e-commerce logistics companies with timely delivery, their trade costs will decrease. This may even help you deal with e-commerce logistics companies on a contractual basis. Contracts will give you a regular income.
(c) Join Social Media
Social Media has become a vital part of business marketing in the present time. Whether you want to serve your existing clients, acquire new clients, or provide your customers with valuable customer service and experience, social media will help you. If you want to get more clients to increase your commission income, then you should promote your business on different social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, etc.
The best part of joining social media is that you don’t have to pay anything to join these channels. Money is only involved when you run paid advertisements about your service on these platforms otherwise everything is available for free of cost.
Social media will yield greater results when it comes to customer acquisition. You just have to make your business profile on social media platforms and start posting relevant details and posts about your services. Do regular postings to reach your potential audience organically. And, invest in social media ads to expand your reach.
Apart from this, you should join various social media groups related to your industry. Spend some time to give your relevant contributions to the queries of other group members. Your participation in the group activities will showcase you as an authority in the group. People will start trusting you and you may even get bookings from there.
Potential customers will hire you when they see your goodwill in the market and service quality. Therefore, you must ask your existing clients to post a review about their experience and your service quality on your social media pages. This will help you gain the trust of your potential customers and bookings from them.
(d) Online-offline Marketing
You have just got to know about using social media to get clients or loads. Now, we’ll tell you about the marketing of your transport commission business with a combination of online and offline approaches. Social media is one of the online marketing ways, and there are many others like business profile creation, SEO-friendly website, forum discussions, etc. When it comes to offline marketing approaches, you can go for newspaper ads, pamphlets, the door-to-door introduction of services, etc.
Wise companies use mixed marketing strategies for more customer acquisition. They use a combination of both online and offline marketing ways to grab as many customers as possible. You can also do the same.
Being a commission agent or business, you can create your business profiles on multiple business directories, get a custom SEO-friendly website designed to showcase everything about your services. Additionally, you can create a YouTube Channel to share your experience and knowledge, and participate in forum discussions to attain a badge of an active and authoritative forum member.
These are all online marketing things that you can do to scale up your transport commission business. Now comes the offline marketing efforts, you can print pamphlets for your business and distribute them door to door. Put your business banners in different locations so your target audience can come across them on daily basis. This will reinforce advertising messages as well as brand awareness.
You can introduce discount offers to the people for liking and following your social media pages. More followers will help you get authority in the eyes of your target audience.
(e) Contact With Manufacturer Company
Today, manufacturing companies are highly dependent on reliable logistics partners. In the cut-throat market competition, manufacturers look for every possible way through which they can meet market demands. Therefore, they always want a trusted transport partner to timely ship their products to the destination point. Being a commission agent, you can grab this opportunity to unleash your earning capability.
If you want more loads on regular basis, then you must contact multiple manufacturing companies in your service location. The best part about dealing with these companies is that you will get regular bookings from them because they need to ship their products to the marketplace.
Most of the manufacturing companies prefer to outsource transportation services because they don’t have to purchase their trucks.
This avoids fleet investments and maintenance costs on their part. You have a great opportunity to get bookings from these companies. You can offer discounts and better deals to manufacturers so they will love to outsource loads to you.
Furthermore, by matching your consignment with other transporters who are shipping to the same locations, you can consolidate multiple loads into a full truckload that will eventually cut down the cost by up to 25% for the manufacturer.
You can open new business opportunities for your transport commission business by dealing with manufacturing companies. Both agents and manufacturing companies get the benefit as agents can earn more and manufacturers can stay tension-free about timely product deliveries.
Conclusion
Commission agents are in high demand by manufacturing and other industries. It’s a great business idea and you can easily achieve success if you act smartly. Online platforms have made it very simple to spread awareness about your business without any investment. Now, you don’t even have a financial barrier to promote your transport commission business.
We have tried our best to give you the most relevant information about getting clients and loads to earn a high commission income. If you follow all the above tips, you don’t have to do anything else to get customers. Additionally, choosing a versatile local transporter will save your time to find trusted transporter every time you have any booking.
The more you spend time on social media and other marketing strategies, the more clients you can acquire. You must use a reliable management system like Bilty to easily manage your loads and other tasks.
