I grew up on an open plot of farmland about a mile from a busy interstate and highway interchange. I remember occasionally hitting up one of the truck-stop diners with my family because it was the closest sit-down restaurant to our house, not realizing until much later in life that most kids didn’t get biscuits and gravy at the 4pm early-bird special amidst truck drivers and chaos.
Any minute of the day you could look out the window of my house and see a truck and trailer pulling whatever your imagination could think of and the constant hum of traffic became a kind of comforting calm.
Because of our location and 40 acres of open land, my parents paved a section and made it available for trucking companies to park their equipment. While we had the perfect location and space, it didn’t prove to be the steady source of income we were hoping it would be, mainly because we didn’t have some essential pieces of the puzzle in place.
If you have open acreage you are considering turning into secure truck and container parking, these are the top obstacles you should plan to tackle.
While we had the space, the only security we had was a Miniature Doberman Pinscher and my dad’s shotgun. Effective, but definitely not reliable enough to consider the facility fully secure.
The top investment you can make to enhance security and generate steady revenue is fencing. In truck parking, warehousing, and equipment storage, having a secure facility can be a deciding factor whether companies choose to hire you, and can help you raise your rates on daily or monthly storage business.
Seems simple enough, right? But fencing can be expensive.
Cheaper options for fencing, like chain link or barbedwire, can be a DIY project that pays off. Another option is lining up unused shipping containers to create a secure perimeter. In a pinch, these options can work until you bring in enough revenue to make upgrades.
Having the best truck parking lot in the area won’t do you any good if trucking companies don’t know about it. Again, where my family epically failed in our parking venture was relying solely on word of mouth, mostly from retired farmers who were very quirky and liked to spend their days hanging around the truck stops.
Not exactly a primo marketing strategy.
To get the word out create flyers, post on social media, and reach out to trucking companies you see around your area.
In addition to these traditional marketing strategies, consider listing your location on an online marketplace to expand your reach to carriers outside of your local market.
The easier it is to pay, the more people will be inclined to buy. Yet another character in the tragic story of a parking lot failed is the yellow notepad my mom had with those carbon copy tear offs.
Enter the beautiful gift of technology.
Invest in a payment system that makes it easy for customers to pay electronically and even easier for you to collect your payment.
There are a ton of online tools you can use now to charge and receive payment from transactions. When researching payment tools, some important things to note are processing fees, payment schedules, and tax responsibilities.
Even though years (I won’t say how many, but enough) have passed since our experimental yard failed, finding secure truck parking is still a top issue for truckers. If you have unused land and are willing to put in a little work, you could open your world and wallet to a steady stream of fresh income while being a key player in easing the strain in an over-stressed industry. A classic reminder that not all heroes wear capes, sometimes they just have a little extra parking space to sell.