Are you thinking of starting your own transport company? If yes, you have to come to the right place to know what you need to know before starting your transportation business. Getting into a transport business is not challenging, but staying in the industry is a real deal. However, if you have a solid business plan, finances, strategy, and BOC-3 filing, you will do great in the industry. If you are wondering, What is BOC-3? It is a federal filing in the USA required before any transportation or logistics company operates. In addition to this, here are a few crucial points you need to know before you start your business.
Table of Contents
Choose the Type of the Transportation Business
Depending on your personal preference and interest, there are up to 12 possible types of transportation businesses that you could start. You are not limited by the options from starting a taxi service to medical transport and from air transport to boats. However, there are more emerging markets that not many who want to start a business gravitate towards. Other markets like school bus companies and scooter rentals are great markets to get started with. Of course, you need to consider one thing before deciding the business is the type of transportation most in-demand in your area. To learn about that, you need to do a little research. It will be beneficial when it is time to write your business plan. But if you know which type of transportation business you want to start, stick to that and research about that more.
Arrange for Finances
The next and one of the most important steps would be arranging finances. If you already have a considerable investment, you are good to go. But if you need to buy vehicles for your chosen transportation business type, you need to look into finances. There are multiple options to source capital, such as banks and investors. Make a budget plan in the initial phase of business planning to get the idea of total expenses. Though you have not started your company yet, consider calculating operational and maintenance costs. Here I would like to suggest not investing in hiring employees when you are just starting the business. You will only need the money to invest in buying or renting the vehicles. As you plan to expand your transportation company and build a proper office, you can hire employees and drivers to run the company properly.
Choose a Name and Entity
Every business needs a name, and in this step, you will decide the details of your company, such as its name and entity. It is important to know that the entity you choose might influence your company’s name. So, it is recommended to select the business entity. As you start a transportation business, some entities might include sole proprietorship, limited liability partnership, and limited liability company. It would be best if you took the entity that makes more sense to you. Finally, finalize the company name, and you are onto your next step.
Write a Business Plan
Remember the work and research you needed to do in choosing your transportation type step? Now, every nitty-gritty detail will come in handy as you write your business plan. If you are starting a transportation company, you need to ensure that the type of transportation you choose is actually in demand. If there is no demand, your company will not last long. So, it would be best if you made a business plan keeping that in view. This step involves the most work, research, and planning. In this step, you will determine what your goals are and define how to achieve them. Typically, for the transportation business, a good business plan must include an overview of the business, market analysis, pricing, marketing plan, and budgeting and projections.
Register Your Transportation Business
Finally, when you have everything planned and ready to go, you need to register your company with that name to reserve. To do so, you might need to visit the website for the Secretary of State’s office depending on the state you plan to run your transport business from. From the site, you will find further information and details to register your business. Choosing the right legal entity is also an important factor and according to llcguys.com – most likely you’ll need an LLC (a limited liability company). At least this is what most of the new businesses in the U.S. uses.
