The Ms. CEO Show

Dear Ms. CEO,

Earlier this year my family and I started a truck driving school in Atlanta and the response has been great. Our prices are lower than all the other schools, the government agency that oversees driving schools has visited ours several times and says it is the best facility in the state, and our school currently has the highest number of graduating students who pass their commercial driving test the first time. We are happy about the success of the business but we’ve got one problem. We need more students! I’m sure some of the slow down in our registrations is due to the holidays and the end of the year but we’re not waiting around for things to pick up—that’s why I’m reaching out to you. Trucking companies desperately need drivers and people desperately need jobs and we can provide the training but we need to get to the students. We have signs, a website, hats, stickers, t-shirts, open houses and job fairs and we’re getting some results but we’d like to see more. Should we break down and hire a marketing firm—which so far looks like it’s going to be very expensive—or is there something else we can do to find students?

-Misty in Atlanta
12/17/08
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Dear Misty,

Congratulations on launching a new business and finding great success right away! Sounds like things are trucking along (pun intended — ha!) but that you want to make sure it stays that way. I like your proactive approach. Well, there are a lot of things I could say but I’ll start with a couple things that may seem super simple but they work like a charm. First, the best way to find new customers is to ask your current ones! Ask students who attend the school now or who have attended the school in the past how they heard about you. This will let you know where and how to reach out to new prospective students. And you may even want to start a referral program. Maybe you can pay $50 for every student referred who completes the program.

The other resource I would suggest using is Craigslist. OMG! Post at your own risk. I mean this in a good way. Every time I have posted jobs on Craigslist I get a flood of applicants. It used to be free but now costs $25. Not a lot of money at all for such a tremendous response.

As an aside: There are many marketing tactics you could use and I’m sure you will think of more. Always find a way to track the various tools and tactics you use so you can put more money and effort into the ones that are working and ditch the ones that are not. To track, use different “reply-to” mechanisms such as unique website addresses, emails, or phone numbers or names of people to ask for—when you get a lot of emails to an address or a lot of people calling asking for “Betty Jo”, well then you know you’ve got a winner. Best of luck to you in business!

-Ms. CEO