On Wednesday in the “How to Start a Food Truck” series, we wrote about the importance of quality ingredients. As a customer, I wholeheartedly second that. I’m sure that as a business owner, you constantly feel the tension of ingredient prices. Do I buy the cheap grocery store-quality tomatoes, or do I buy the fresh-from-the-local [...]
This episode of FoodTruckr School is a bit different—Pat’s not here, so the team at FoodTruckr HQ took over! Matt Gartland, Nicole Farley, Jonathan Wondrusch, and Mindy Holahan held a roundtable discussion just for you where we shared insights on everything from developing customer relationships to the origin story behind the FoodTruckr brand.
Your unique selling proposition (USP)—or the concept that you come up with for your truck—is one of the key ingredients in your recipe to successful food truck ownership. You’ll be working with the USP and refining it a lot over the next several months, but for now, it’s simply important to come up with a solid idea with a supporting plan that’s as detailed as possible. So grab your favorite note-taking device and start those brain engines—we’re about to do some serious thinking!
I’ve been giving this question a lot of thought in the last nine months, since Pat first told us about his plans to start FoodTruckr. What is it, really, that makes food trucks so special? It’s food…from a truck. When you break a food truck down to its components, it doesn’t sound that special. In [...]
The start of a new year is a magnificent time to reflect on the joys you experienced in the last 365 days as well as everything you hope to achieve in the future. Entrepreneurs and small business owners commonly use this time to think critically about how they can start or grow their businesses over the next 12 months. If you’ve always wanted to try your hand at a fresh food truck business or you want to take your truck to the next level, now is the time to rev those engines!
Are you the kind of person who sets resolutions each year? I am, from something as simple as choosing a guiding phrase for the year (2009: “Listen more, talk less”) or as elaborate as building a twelve month happiness project (2014). Whether I ultimately stick to my resolutions or not, I gain a lot of [...]
In this episode of FoodTruckr School, we talk with Matt Berkland from Truckily.com about best practices and tips for sharing your location on social media. How often do you share your location? How much time do you give your customers to locate you? What do you include in a tweet versus what do you share on [...]
If you’re used to parking in busy areas and getting a fair amount of walk-up traffic, you might not think you really need to worry about broadcasting your truck’s location. But here’s a little secret: Every food truck can benefit from sending out location updates. That’s right—every single one.
Winter is a tough time of year for a food truck fan living in the colder regions of the country. As I mentioned last time, I live in the Twin Cities. Today it’s a balmy 11 degrees, but yesterday dropped down to -8, and all my favorite food trucks have parked themselves for the season [...]
‘Tis the season of giving—did you remember to add your food truck to your gift list this year? With temperatures dropping and snow starting to fall, your food truck deserves a little extra special something. Before you head out on the road to meet your legions of hungry fans, make sure your food truck is in tip-top shape with these nine important winterization precautions.
In this third episode of FoodTruckr School, I don’t have a guest on the show with us this time around, however I pose a very important question to all food truck owners out there: Why aren’t you asking your customers for their email addresses? The only logical answer here is that you just don’t know [...]
As people cut their budgets in order to save more money for tree-trimming and gift-giving, it can be tough for food truck owners and other personal service providers to attract fans who may be reluctant to spend money on themselves. Fortunately, FoodTruckr has the scoop on six seasonal strategies your food truck can use to delight fans all throughout December.
What’s your guilty pleasure? Mine’s a grilled cheese sandwich: bread grilled until it’s dark and crunchy, cheese that’s impossibly melty, a bit of melted butter on my fingers. As a child, the grilled cheese sandwich was my mom’s go-to meal when she needed me to just sit still for a few minutes; and now as [...]
Mobile payment processors give your truck freedom—allowing you to attract customers who would walk on by if you only accepted cash, while also making it easier for you to manage credit and debit transactions. Of course, payment processors aren’t all knights in shining armor. They’re still businesses in their own rights that strive for profit, which means that you need to understand your options.
In this second episode of FoodTruckr School, we chat with Chris Adams from Rocketman Creative, a branding expert and strategist who helps food trucks new and old establish their identity and focus or re-focus their branding efforts for maximum impact. It’s so much more than just designing a cool logo – there’s an entire culture [...]
We all learned at an early age not to judge a book by its cover, right? That’s bad advice when it comes to brands. On a daily basis, customers are bombarded with advertisements and challenged to make quick decisions. In a split second, a hungry fella walking past your truck is going to decide whether or not to eat your tantalizing sandwich—and the power of your brand will influence his decision.
The food truck gods are fickle beings, and your truck may be plagued by customer droughts if you fail to please them. But if you can figure out the secret to the sacrament of success, you’ll be rewarded with floods of excited fans who pray for the day your truck rolls into their neighborhood.
Want to know how to get into customer heaven? Honor these 10 commandments of customer relationships faithfully and you’ll be blessed with a flock of hungry, happy followers for your truck.
We at FoodTruckr are extremely happy to welcome you to the very first episode of FoodTruckr School! FoodTruckr School is a podcast dedicated to helping you take your food truck business to the next level. Whether you’re just starting out or you’re a veteran in the business, we’ve got a whole lineup of incredibly valuable, [...]
Boardwalk Breakfast Empire made it to the second week of “The Great Food Truck Race” before a narrow loss during one of the show’s challenges left them vulnerable to elimination. However, the talented teammates learned a lot and made tons of fans along the way. We spoke with contestant Ilene Winters to get the scoop on the show’s casting process, what’s next for her team, and some advice for aspiring food truck owners.
Before you quit your day job and invest in a $50,000 truck, you need to figure out if your dream is even viable. So grab some takeout from your favorite truck for inspiration and sit down with your note-taking device of choice. You’re going to write a food truck business plan—and it will take some time. It’s essentially the recipe that will determine your future success.
How to meet more event professionals (a.k.a. why associations are your friend) In our last post, we discussed a variety of event professionals and how to work with them to make your food truck’s catering business more successful. Remember that the key to working well with event professionals is to listen—listen to their needs, and [...]
One of the strongest messages we heard from food truck owners in our recent post 50 Food Truck Owners Speak Out: “What I Wish I’d Known Before Starting My Food Truck is that catering special events can be the key to building a thriving food truck business. After all, catering for special events like weddings [...]
A vehicle, a menu, and a place to park—these are the essentials your food truck needs before you can open for business. Once you’re ready to expand, you might branch out by sharing your location through social media and participating in community events. But when should you add a website to the mix?
You have a story to tell me, your customer. Your daily life is vastly more interesting than my monotonous job, which means that I’m eager for a good tale full of adventure, both the ups and the downs. So, the better you get at telling your story, the more connected I’ll feel to you.
And the more connected I feel to you, the more I’ll buy from you.
Stress much about social media? You’re not alone. The platform choices are endless. And deciding what to post and when is enough to drive anyone batty. Food truck owners have a harder go than the average social media user because so much of their businesses rely on customer outreach and engagement through social channels.
Let’s end the madness, shall we? To do so, let’s focus on data to tell the true story of which social media channels work best.