INSIGHTFUL TALK

What will 2021 hold for the Towing Industry

Well, we survived 2020, but not without a lot of pain and suffering. No tow shows, companies going out of business, owners cutting employees. Let us face it, 2020 sucked. Our hope is it cannot get worse in 2021 or can it?

I do not want to get into politics, but we have a new president, and he has already shaken up things. With executive orders, let us look at some of the things that will impact your business. 1.We have an executive that stopped the pipeline that kept our gas prices low. I’m guessing we can expect our gas prices to go up. As business owners, we will find a way to pass this expense back to the consumer. That means our prices go up, which means we will lose business. 2.Minimum wage goes to $15.00 an hour. Some companies will cut staff which will impact the quality of service they provide. Others will increase salaries raising expenses.

3.With the pandemic going on, will towers be allowed to cross state lines without problems? 4.Masks will be required, and trucks will have to be cleaned constantly. 5.With tow shows in jeopardy of being canceled, vendors cannot sell product, and companies cannot upgrade their equipment.

I am guessing that a lot of towers hunt. That tells me they may be conservative so we know they are already affected by the results of the election. I cannot imagine what will happen when the government tries to take their guns. I was talking to a president of a towing association,

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and he told me vendors are looking for ways to sell their product without going to tow shows. They had a year to come up with new ways to sell product without tow shows.

In 2021 I think tow companies are going to have to find new ways to get business. Tow companies have been calling me and asking for help. They need me to find them some tow. In the past, tow companies do not usually market their services, especially through social media. They usually wait for the consumer to call them, or go out and find accounts like body shops, or trucking companies. The reason they call TowTrax is because I find tows for tow companies. Its time we start thinking out of the box on how to generate new revenue. When I call them up and ask them to register with TowTrax so I can send them business, they tell me they do not want their drivers taking calls directly. Most bigger companies cannot get past taking jobs that do not go through their dispatcher. I understand they want control because they have priorities on calls. Many owners tell me they do not want their drivers taking calls because they are not smart enough, and yet they trust them with a $200,000 truck and allow let their $10 an hour dispatcher, oops! - I mean $15 an hour dispatcher control their business.

Sooner or later these companies are going to have to modify the way they do business. I am not telling them to change the way they do business. I am just asking them to look at new ways to address the problem.

There is a company out of California that came up with a way of towing cars in Texas. They advertise in Texas with a local number and when they get a call it goes to their California office. They take the call and call up tow companies in Texas and give them the call. The local companies are losing business to out of state tow companies because they are not marketing their services. Someone was smart enough to think out of the box.

I do not know what the next six months holds for the country. There is talk of a civil war and our country will be destroyed if this happens. But our new administration, with all their changes they talk about will also change the world as we know it.

As business owners we have a lot to think about and we are distracted thinking about things like:

1. Open borders 2. Abortions worldwide 3. Electric cars and tow trucks 4. Defunding law enforcement 5. The green deal 6. Trillions of dollars in debt 7. How will all this affect the stock market and other investments 8. What other taxes will be applied that we do not know about 9. They want to use our taxpayer dollars to bail out states that have been destroyed by decisions made by government

With all this to worry about, we still have our business to run. I think it’s time for our industry to work together and come up with ways to survive in a world that is changing. As I mentioned earlier, I have some things that I am doing for other companies and I would like to talk with others and come up with some new ideas for our industry. I want any interested parties to reach out to me, and I will put together a zoom call so we can have a discussion on how to address 2021 going forward.

What we have to make sure does not happen is that we divide the industry and fight with each other. 2021 is going to be hard to survive in without us adding to the problem. If you would like to be a part of change the future call me at 469-774-0340 or e-mail me at dan@ towtrax.net.

God bless and let’s all have a great year.