Save Money On Moving Truck Rentals

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It's Louis Massaro. And welcome to another episode of the Moving Mastery podcast.

Hey. Hey. What's up, guys? So I want to talk to you about saving some money on truck rentals. I know it's a big expense for a lot of people. It's an important part of the moving business. So let's talk about how to save some money before I get started. If you want to learn the seven key areas that your dispatcher needs to tighten up in order to increase profits in your moving company, go to movingmastery.com I've got a free training up there. You definitely need to get that. You definitely need to watch that right now before we go into season. It's crucial. All right, so let's talk about.

Truck rentals, right? So I started my moving company with truck rentals. That's essentially how I started. I rented two trucks. I worked out of the truck rental yard. I drove there every day. I didn't own any trucks. I didn't have any trucks. I didn't have an office. It was all about truck rentals. So truck rentals for me have always been a part of my business, even to the point when I had 60 trucks, right? I was still making truck rentals. You know, it was like that crutch that you needed when you get busy, that crutch that you need when, you know, the end of the month comes, when summer comes. And, you know, unfortunately, I had to learn the hard way that, you know, sometimes you're not, you know, you're trusting the truck rental company to bill you correctly, and it's not always correct, right? So we had to learn that the hard way. And I want to talk to you about that today because as we come in the summer, I know you're gonna be renting some trucks. I know you're gonna be extra busy. You know, the end of the month comes, the weekend comes. You know, it shouldn't always be to where you have a certain amount of trucks. And if those trucks are busy, you turn down work. You wanna be able to have extra guys. You want to be able to have access to extra trucks. You don't need to own extra trucks that you've got laying around. You just want to make sure you've got access to those trucks through truck rental companies, right? And for us, you know, we dealt, you know, I would say probably 60% with one company another, 40% with another company, and then the rest with, you know, when we were scrambling, we went to wherever we needed to go to get truck rentals, right? And so the reason that I'm talking about this today is because I want to share with you what happened when we started to really look into the billing from one of the main companies that we were doing business with. I'm not going to name them right now, but chances are many of you are doing business with the company, and it's nothing against the particular company at all. As a business owner, it's your responsibility to verify all of your bills, all of your invoices, and make sure you're paying for what you received. Right. So there's no shot against any truck rental company. But I'm here to tell you that it's important that you start checking your bills to make sure you're being billed appropriately for what it is that you're doing for the trucks that you're renting. All right, so I'll give you an example. Let's say you're going to rent a truck, and, you know, typically you would pick up a truck for, you know, if we need a truck for tomorrow, you go pick up the truck today if you can, right? First thing you want to do is you definitely want to estab.

A good relationship with where you're renting trucks, right? Get to know the people that are there. Typically, these offices all, you know, are individual in your city, maybe you go to, you know, you got Penske, you've got Ryder, you've got Budget, right? We weren't really big on renting from U Haul because, you know, the way the trucks are weren't really in line with us. Like, when we brought them back to our warehouse, the dock didn't line up with the dock, but it was a last resort, right. If there was nothing else around when you needed extra trucks and a p. But, you know, go to wherever you normally rent trucks and start to establish a relationship there. It goes a long way. Because when they know you and they know that you're consistent with the trucks that you need to rent, they'll give you a little more priority. Right? And it's important that you do that because we were able. I'm not saying you're going to be able to do this wherever you're at, but we were able to work, you know, a deal where it's like, hey, look, can we come pick up the trucks, you know, right before you close the night before, we're gonna need them. But not bill us until the next day. Cause we're not gonna use them. You can come. Look, they're gonna be sitting in our yard. But I need to get them filled with equipment. I need to get my pads, my dollies, my straps. I need to get everything loaded up on these trucks so they're ready to go first thing in the morning. Because most of the time the truck rental places don't open until after you're ready to dispatch. So anytime you're ready to go get a truck, you in the morning, right, it kind of holds up the day. I mean, you know that if you've ever had to go pick up a truck, let's say they don't even open till, you know, if it's early, let's say seven o'. Clock. Typically that's not even the case, but let's say they're open at 7 o'. Clock. You got to go there, you got to pick up the truck, you've got to wait for them to do all the stuff they do on their end. Now you need to bring that truck back to the office, fill that truck up, get the pads, get the dollies, right. Everything that you need to do that's, you know, that's costing you time, that's costing you money. You know, you may be paying your driver to do it at that time. But what we found was that even with the understanding of, hey, we're going to pick up the trucks at this time, we're going to use them this day. And sometimes even the drop off point would be, you know, hey, look, we're only really using them Saturday, we'll bring them back to you first thing Sunday morning when we have time to unload them and get them back. And they'd be like, okay, well we won't charge you for that time. But the reason we're talking about this is mostly because of the billing, right? And for a long time I didn't really look at the billing. They said, hey, you owe us this. And I'm like, okay, we cut the check, right? That was it. And so by the way, if you're just joining us, make sure you go to movingmastery.com and get the free training on the seven key areas your dispatcher needs to tighten up to increase profits in your moving company. It's there for, for a limited time for free@movingmastery.com go grab that now. And you know, so we're going through the bills and we're looking at them and I forget exactly how it started to unravel, right? I mean, typically anytime you find out something that's going wrong, you know, you just happen to be doing your daily work, right? Like, and you find out about something. Maybe you catch one of your movers, you know, working off the clock. The reason you found out is because the mover called to complain about damage. And meanwhile, the truth started to come out, right? So I forget exactly how we discovered that we were being overbilled on a regular basis by the truck rental company, but we did. And from that point forward, we instituted what I call the truck rental tracker. Simple sheet. Again, nothing complex. You don't have to get. You know, keep things simple, right? But it was a sheet that every time we went and rented a truck, we filled out the information on, I think it was the unit number, license plate, what time we picked it up, what date we picked it up, how much fuel was in it, how many miles were on the truck, right? And then when we dropped it off, we did the same thing, and it was essentially like a log, right? So imagine like an Excel spreadsheet, but, like, print it out on a sheet of paper, okay? That's what it looked like. It was a truck rental tracker log. And by doing this, when that invoice came, when that bill came, this doesn't matter if you're on a. You know, if you have an account with the truck rental company or they're billing your credit card automatically. Either way, okay? Even if the card gets charged beforehand, you still need to make sure that you're getting billed for the time that you're actually using that truck and not for more time. All right? You know, I heard from somebody recently that I was teaching this to. That.

I was at the seminar, one of my mastermind groups somewhere, and they said, you know, I know someone who used to work at one of these truck rental companies, and that was kind of like their practice, right? They would add a little extra mileage or add an extra half a day, whatever the case may be. Again, I'm not one to throw blame on anybody and play the victim. What I'm saying is take the responsibility as a business owner and make sure it's not happening to you. And if it's happening, you know what? So what? It's no reason to, you know, say, I'm gonna take my business elsewhere. No, just watch what you're doing, right? When you spend money, make sure you're spending money for the service that you're actually getting, right? So listen, I talk to a lot of people with truck rentals, and, you know, they say it's a big expense. They're like, louis, I really want to buy some trucks because these truck rentals are killing me, right? And, you know, there's one area right there, right. Make sure that you're actually paying for what you're getting and you're not getting overbilled. That's one thing. Second thing you want to do is check with your insurance to see if you can put.

The truck rentals on your insurance, right? So we had insurance to where, you know, as many trucks as we wanted to go rent.

The truck rentals were covered, right? So you weren't picking up that additional insurance every single time. You didn't have to pay for that additional insurance every single time.

You went and rented a truck. Right? Because, you know, you have the daily truck rental, then you have the mileage, then you have the insurance if you don't have insurance. So go check with your insurance company that insures your regular trucks, if you have them, and say, how can we insure rental trucks as we need them? You know, the easiest thing would be, you know, they just kind of as part of your policy, all rental trucks are covered. That would be the easiest. But otherwise you might just be able to call in, right. Or email in or, you know, back in the day, fax something in with any new rental trucks that you get, and then it's covered from there, right? So that could save you some money as well. And you also want to go and negotiate a deal with the places that you rent trucks from. Then that's why it really pays to rent from the same place consistently, because you could work a deal with them. Right? So whether you can get, you know, if you've got multiple locations, you may be able to get a, you know, a national account to where, you know, you can really save. If you just happen to be a local company and you rent a lot of trucks, they might be able to give you a good deal, whether that's a little bit of money off the. Off the mileage, the daily rental, right. Whatever it might be, they might throw you, you know, you know, keep the truck for a month, and we'll give you whatever the deal is. Right. Each individual place is typically run by. It doesn't matter what the brand is, right. Whether it's Penske, Ryder, U Haul Budget, a local company that you might rent trucks from, doesn't matter. They're typically run by individual managers. They have a set, you know, rules that they have to follow from corporate, but they have a little leeway in what they can do, and they want to be able to take care of their customers. And you're not only. So when we say that, don't think that you're Stuck with.

Whatever it might be. So if you're getting trucks from one brand, one company, they have multiple branches in most places. So probably you're going to the one that's most convenient for you. Probably you're going to the one that is closest to you. But sometimes not. For me, when I started working out of the truck rental yard, when I finally got my office, well, we moved to a place that was much closer to a new truck rental yard, right? Same company, but the place that I was working out of was much further, and I continued to rent trucks from them because I had a relationship with them. Eventually we shifted over to the closer location. But the point is, don't just think, okay, this is Penske. That's Penske. This is Ryder. This is Ryder. And then it's all the same, right? You might be able to go in and work a deal with that particular manager in that location, but definitely look to work a deal with them. All right? I know that's, you know, but that's really what it is. Like, you go in and say, hey, look, we're shopping around. We're really looking for someone to give all of our business to. You know, we've been spreading it out quite a bit at this point, and we want to kind of have one relationship and build that relationship, right? You know, just, you know, go in there, shake some hands, get to know them a little bit. It goes a long way in what you could actually get from them, right? Because, listen, when it's crunch time, when it's summer, when, you know, when you've got jobs and you've got opportunities, or a truck breaks down and you need a rental truck, you want someone that's kind of gonna pull some strings for you and see what they could do to make that happen, right? Next thing is, again, get yourself the truck rental tracker. Make a sheet. I don't care if you write it down on a post it note and keep that post it note there until you return the truck and just have a reference to compare to the bill. The bill comes, the invoice comes. You want to compare that pickup date, drop off date, mileage when we picked it up, mileage when we dropped it off. Fuel. Fuel. And make sure you are not getting over bill. Whether it's an oversight from the truck rental company, whether it's something that's happening on purpose, it doesn't matter. This isn't again, about to shift blame. What it is is to stop losing money on truck rentals, right? So those are your quick tips for today. Get Yourself a truck rental tracker. Keep track of the trucks. Make sure that you are being billed appropriately. Go and establish a relationship with your local truck rental company. Make sure that they're prepared for you. They've got the trucks you need. Call ahead of time, right? When you know you're gonna be busy, right? So let's see, what's the. I don't have a calendar here, but the end of the month, right, Whatever the dates are, you typically know, right? If there's gonna be a. Let's say Friday and Saturday. It's like, you know, Friday's the 30th, Saturday's the 31st, and.

You know, Sunday's the 1st, right? Let's say, like that's a compacted end of the month. Sometimes it's spread out and you're not and the work's really sp. But sometimes it's really compacted into just a few days. When the last day of the month and the first day of the month fall on the weekend, call in advance and reserve your trucks. Know you're gonna have them. Know you'll have them ready to go. Listen, you don't want to be in a position where you can't service the work you're booking because you don't have the trucks to do it. Trucks are easy, right? That's why I'm like, go full blast booking moves. Book a ton of moves. Book high paying moves and then go rent trucks as you need to rent trucks. Have your guys on standby. We can do another episode on movers and hiring and training and all that down the road. But go out there and make sure you got some deals going with these trucks. Make sure you're not getting overbilled with these trucks, all right? Remember, it's all about the profitability. All right? These are things, these videos that we've been doing the last few days, these are things that cut into your profits a little bit here, a little bit there. There's no one big magic bullet. This is what you need to do to be profitable. What you need to do to be profitable is run a tight operation. In order to run a tight operation, there's a lot of little screws that need to be tightened up. If you want to learn how to do it, go to movingmastery.com I've got some free training up there for a limited time on the seven key areas to tighten up in your dispatch operation to increase profits. Listen, guys, I hope this was helpful. I see you guys here. Shane, Lane, Taylor, Connor, Matthew, I see you guys. Listen, until I see you next time. Go out there every single day, profiting your business, thriving your life. Season's here. Get the rake out. Go get the money. I'll see you later.

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