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Trucking invoice template for small businesses

hey guys this is Kyle from projection hub and today we are going to go through how to create a business plan for a new trucking business so what this video is not going to be is I'm not going to write every single word in a new business plan to demonstrate how to do this but what I'm going to do is I'm going to go through the structure and outline of a already filled out trucking business plan and then along the way I'm going to demonstrate and point out five key things that are probably going to make or break whether or not you can get approved for financing or you know your business plan is going to be accepted the way that it is so I'm going to be using a free business plan template there's no strings attached you'll be able to download or access this trucking business plan template it'll be a link down in the description of the video and you can use it get your copy because you know business plan is only going to be as good as the information that you put in it so it's pre-filled out for kind of a fictitious example you can you know if you're going to have to change the words you're gonna have to put in your own information but it is going to serve as a good guide to give you something to reference so who is projectionum we've helped more than 50 1000 businesses small businesses create Financial projections to round out business plans get approved for financing raise investment and many of those businesses are trucking businesses it's actually one of our you know most common customers our owner operator truckers that are looking to start their own business or potentially grow it by adding new trucks to their Fleet so a little bit of experience working with this industry here and before projection hub I personally worked with an SBA lender as a loan officer so I did that for nearly seven years and many of the businesses that we helped were people looking to buy their first truck or buy maybe their second or third truck so spend a lot of time reviewing trucking business plans Financial projections for people just like you so hopefully the Insight I can give you is helpful and if you stick around so obviously what we do is financial projections that that's our expertise not necessarily writing business plans although we work with business plans quite often and so you're going to find out here to no surprise that Financial projections are a very good big component of the business plan so we offer uh a financial projection template specifically for truck businesses that'll basically produce those financial statements that your lender is going to require very easily and I at the very end of the video I'll give you a promo code to get to get a nice discount on that template if you decide that's a good option for you so if at any point you find this content helpful please like the video subscribe to our Channel if you want we try to put out tips for business owners to stay on top of their financial situation for their business so without further Ado let's go ahead and jump in all right why is the business plan important it's important because this is your roadmap to success you know for a well-known industry the the purpose of your business plan isn't to explain the industry to them or the opportunity it's focused more on what is your specific plan to success now if it was a more novel industry or one that people weren't very familiar with and it would be the responsibility of the business plan to do some educating as well as you know outline your your map to success but for an industry like Trucking it's not brand new you know it doesn't leave much to the imagination so this doesn't need to be a really long business plan that's a that's a point that trips up people a lot of times and and contrary to popular belief you don't have to turn in a 40-page business plan now as a lender if we received a business plan that was really long it's kind of like oh gosh you know there's a lot of information to go through there and we would skip to these sections I'm going to focus on the five key points to really to get a quick idea whether or not this is something that could be approved or you know sounds like a good idea so what we're going to do is I'm going to scroll through this here we're going to focus on the outline and then I'm going to pick out five key points that I think will really make the difference to make sure your business plan is prepared for financing so you don't kind of come back and forth between them so right off the bat here you can kind of see the structure of the business plan again you can grab this template for free in the description we're going to do you know basic introduction a market analysis that makes it sound more technical than it needs to be but we'll dig into that a little bit more what type of services you're going to offer marketing and sales strategy now I know for a trucking company that may not be like that important depending upon the type of services you're going to offer but we'll drill down on the key issue now there your operations plan as well and then Financial projections which is a big component and then some of the the you know technical details down here how your business will be structured um that kind of stuff so all right let's kind of go through here your introduction you know think about this kind of like the cover letter of a resume it doesn't need to be really long really in depth but you do want to hit the high points now if there's something specific you know maybe like your your total startup costs name of the business where you plan to operate or drive trucks that kind of thing get the quick high level overview now market analysis this is where our first kind of big point is going to come up so in an industry like Trucking what we really want to demonstrate in this section is that there is you know availability in the market there is space in the market for if you if you start your own business buy your own truck that there's going to be you know business that you can actually obtain now you know as well as most people probably with current events right now that there's a massive need for truck drivers for people willing to move Freight so you know even though your lender is going to know that um still good to probably include something in here you know you can do even just doing some quick Google searches this article from Forbes even says that the American Trucking association association is estimating that there's 80 000 more drivers that are needed right now with a short 12 160 000 truckers to Exist by 2030. so this problem isn't going away anytime soon which you know that's a problem for the country but that is a of opportunity for you as the truck driver so there's no doubt for this type of Industry that there is a market so you you could probably keep that brief in your business plan because your lender is likely going to understand that that's not what's going to make or break their decision for you so let's kind of keep moving through here your service is offered now let's stop here for a little bit to kind of drill into this so you know I'm not a trucking expert I've looked at a lot of business plans and I've had a lot of clients that have been trucking businesses um so I you know there's there's differences between right here's where you're going to want to drill down like are there some dedicated routes that you've identified that you have the opportunity to to take on you know maybe you have a connection at a different company or a manufacturer Distribution Company or whatever that's going to be and they have a spot where they're saying hey we've got a couple dedicated routes we need somebody to get in that ASAP you know put that in your business plan that is really important because sometimes a dedicated route can be so lucrative that you know you could buy one truck and hire a truck driver drive it yourself and boom right there that's that's everything you know that'll that'll pay 100 Grand 150 Grand a year just to take on that route so that's something you would want to include if your plan is to you know Buy a reefer truck and do spot Freight and pick up loads and drive those around that's another thing you want to include but if you're going to go that route you also need to demonstrate that you know where to find those loads that you're going to be able to identify those and you're going to have the equipment necessary you know to generate what you need to for those projects so that's Point number two I guess you could kind of call it customer acquisition now that looks different for different Industries but for Trucking you're just going to want to kind of focus on what connections do you have do you already have a lead on some of these a dedicated route or how you you know demonstrate you you have the know-how to to find the routes necessary and what type of truck and service you're going to offer right so there needs to be some some numbers associated with that that you demonstrate you know you know how to find the loads and you're going to be able to do that going through here Marketing sales strategy this is kind of connected to what I was just talking about if you're you know you need to attract potential loads or customers you would want to outline that here um if if that's something you want to focus on on like your growth plan but if if the focus is to be like a single truck or a few trucks and you already have you know a lead on on where you're going to pick up those routes less important to have a marketing and sales strategy for you know a trucking company or an owner operator or truck okay kind of moving through here operations plan I would say the main thing that you want to talk about here is if you're going to have a fleet right so if you're going to be a have a single truck and you plan to drive that truck this will be a pretty brief section if you plan to hire to buy a couple of trucks and you're going to hire a few drivers then that's where you're going to want want to elaborate here you know because that could start to get you know convoluted if you have enough trucks and they're picking up different routes you might need a dispatcher and you got to kind of keep all that organized so that's where this section is going to increase or decrease depending upon the structure you're planning to plan to get started with so okay Financial projections um now this is going to be 0.3 and obviously we think Financial projections are pretty big deal that's kind of what the premise of our whole business but really you know we may be a little a little biased but this this should be the the vast majority of your business plan especially for the trucking industry this is kind of making or breaking a lot of the decision your lender is going to be making so we want to make sure we do this section really well so you can see from here I've already got some some pre-filled in charts and tables and you'll even see down here financial statements so if I haven't already mentioned we we offer a financial projection template just for truck drivers and so it's very user friendly probably our most popular template that we sell mainly because it's simple and it's cheap and if you go to the bank and you're trying to get a loan for your truck they're going to ask you especially if it's a new business they're going to ask you we need to see some projections and so you're not doing this because it's really fun to do and you love to do it but likely because it's a requirement in order to get the funding you need so this template is built to be quick simple streamlined you can definitely do it yourself but we're also here to answer questions and help you fill it out so it's very simple you know you're going to put in the startup money that you need you know to buy the trucks what type of trucks you're going to have here their value some of the financing information and then it's as simple as kind of going through and see like how how many days of the week are you going to be driving your company's gonna have drivers on the road how many miles per day could that be like this is setting the capacity that your company will have you know if you have dedicated route information this is where we're gonna we're gonna drill into that you're gonna have costs associated with that then over here we have Over The Road Trucking and spot Freight you know loads where you can go into that a little bit more you'll include your expenses if you have any employees that's where they'll go here and then it generates automatically all these nice charts and this is this is really what your lender wants they once they want these five-year three to five years of financial statements and so the template's going to do all that for you so it's very very simple that is available that's where all these charts and graphs came from if you did decide to get that you know there's a video here that walks you through the whole thing how to fill it out and then you'd be able to just grab these charts and tables just like you see in this business plan plop them in here with your information that's been included and you're good to go so but a little bit more about why the financials are important or what they're going to be looking for so what your lender wants to basically see is do your financial projections line up within industry standards they don't want to see any outliers you know they don't want to see that your estimated total revenue is way higher than what they would normally see because you know driving is is standardized probably within 50 cents you know per mile or that kind of thing so you want to make sure you're within that range so my recommendation is as you're filling out the projections you may based on your experience know what those numbers need to be but also feel free to look those up you know it's a lot of information out there you can see if you're driving a van you know 230 to 286 per mile reefers are going for 319 per mile which is just higher flatbed 314 a mile and then obviously a dedicated route versus spot Freight you know it's going to be a different rate so just make sure that the numbers you're using are within line with industry standards um you know like profit margins already mentioned total revenue is the business cash flowing like we want to demonstrate that the business is going to make it to positive cash flow so you can actually you know afford your loan payment your lender is going to talk a lot about a debt service coverage ratio you know they're going to want that to be 1.2 or higher um that basically just means that they want to see that you're projecting a dollar and 20 cents in free cash flow versus every dollar debt payment they want to be able to see that you can actually afford you know the loan payment so that's why the financial projections are going to be important and it really is as simple as like if you're looking for markers there do quick Google searches what's an average profit margin for an owner operator trucking business what is the average debt service coverage ratio for an owner operator trucking business and just use that to compare so not only do you have to have the financial projections but key Point number three is they need to be realistic and within industry standards so that plug there again um if you if you need help with that reach out to us or grab that template should be super helpful and I'll give you a promo code for that at the end of the video okay so I'm gonna scroll through here and you're basically going to see the rest of this video is primarily the financial or the business plan the financial Financial projections you have ownership structure put those details down here if you have potential risks you know this stuff I'm not saying it's not important um but this isn't the decision maker you know how well you write your contingency plan probably isn't the decision maker on the loan so you know a five to ten page business plan is is going to be more than enough for a trucking business but two more points that I haven't mentioned yet so number four is the team and experience so can you demonstrate that you have the experience or someone on your team has the experience that you actually know what you're doing you're going to be able to do this business successful so if you have experience being a truck driver or maybe you've done dispatch before you've been in this industry so maybe you've been driving for another company for 20 years and you decide like man I can make way more money if I'm doing this on my own that's a great demonstration of experience that's that's about all your lender is going to need to know they just need to know that you know what you're doing so include that experience in your business plan or make sure your lender knows that about you and the fifth and final point is skin in the game or Mutual risk so your lender they're going to want to see that you're committed to what you're doing and that even if it gets tough that you know you're going to kind of push through it and make it work demonstrating skin in the game and your commitment to that is likely going to look like you're investing a certain amount of cash you know if you're looking for 100 grand to buy a nice new Peterbilt truck then you're probably gonna be expected to put in twenty thousand dollars ten or twenty thousand dollars of the cash towards that truck and then the bank Bank is still going to want to hold the title you know to that truck maybe you have a title to another car like if you don't have cash to put down as a down payment then you might have to put a second mortgage on your house or or you know put something up up worth now the lender is not doing this to wreck your life or control your life but to them it's more of a demonstration that you know they want to know how committed you are to this and and if it doesn't work they want you to know that it's going to hurt a little bit because it's going to you know hurt them a little bit too so that's that's really all that they want to see that there is some skin in the game and you got to be prepared you know a lot of times people say you got to keep the business and personal separate that is true but from the lender's side of things are giving you a lot of money so they want to know that you're you can't just walk away you know personally from it as well you got to kind of be committed to that so there you have it that's the quick overview of how to do a trucking business plan it's as simple as following a template like this fill it out with your information and then really focus on those five key points that are going to make the business plan you know shine and give your lender the Comfort they need to know to give you an approval for the money that you need now how can we help you from the standpoint I already pointed out the trucking projection template for you scroll back up here for you there's actually a link included in here this video will give you a link as well but you can see here there's a link directly to the trucking template you can use ph20bp to get a 20 discount on the template I think it's a 79 template so 20 off that you know it's pretty affordable much cheaper than if you have a CPA or something do your projections for you the template was built by a CPA that gives you a little bit more confidence in it we also offer a complimentary projection review so if you fill it out and you really want to make sure it's good to go send a test we'll give you a pointers feedback and answer questions for you on that even if you already have projections feel free to send them to us we'll review those as well free of charge to make sure you feel comfortable with that so if you're in need of a lender We're Not A lender but we we have connections to different lenders we can we can recommend some for your area so feel free to let us know hopefully this video is helpful again like the video if it was hit subscribe if you'd like some more helpful tips about you know taking care of the the financial side of your business and we'll catch you in the next video thanks foreign