1. A Food Truck Business Plan Depicts Focus

Developing a formal business plan is important to show all vested parties (investors, employees, partners, and yourself) that you are focused on building your brand. This also shows that you are a visionary leader and others will be invited to share in your vision.

2. It Helps You Determine Your Financial Needs

Most people fail to realize how expensive it can be to start a food truck business. Food trucks have a very high rate of failure. There are important factors to consider at the start, such as the cost of food, payroll, and taxes, all of which make business owners quickly drained. A business plan is an essential tool that enables you to make your plans on paper, such as the start-up cost, projected sales, and the annual budget. Using the plan, you will be able to determine the amount of capital you need and what exactly you will use it for.

3. You Understand Your Competitors

The process of creating a plan forces you to evaluate your competitors. All food trucks face competition from both direct and indirect competitors.  A food truck business plan helps you understand and avoid risks. For example, while carrying out research for your plan, you may discover that two other food trucks share the same concept as you. Because you discovered this early enough, you can make needed changes without having to spend any money.

4. You Will Understand Your Customers Better

Part of the business plan is customer analysis. This step will open your eyes to the world of your customers. You will be in a position to determine what they buy, where they buy, and why they buy products. You will also know what they don’t buy, and the reason behind their distaste for certain products, or places.

5. You Can Evaluate the Feasibility of Your Concept

How good is your idea? The process of coming up with a business plan involves educating yourself on your target market and the competitive landscape. This is a form of a feasibility study to assess the likelihood of your business thriving.

6. You Will Discover New Opportunities

Creating a business plan involves a lot of brainstorming.  During the brainstorming process, you will see your business from a whole different perspective. Consequently, you will come up with new ideas and strategies.

Build Your Custom Food Truck Today!

Why is a food truck plan important for your business? You are already aware of the obvious reasons, but there are so many other great reasons that most food truck owners are not aware of. That is why we have provided you with the top six reasons why such a business plan is paramount.  At Legion Food Trucks, we have a team of experts that are dedicated to taking you through the entire process. Contact us today and let us take your business to a whole other level.

The post 6 Reasons Your Restaurant Needs a Food Truck Business Plan appeared first on Legion Food Trucks.

1. It’s Your Food Truck Business, but The Customer Is Always Right

Customer satisfaction is one of the most important key performance metrics in the foodservice business. Old wisdom has it that no matter the situation, the customer is always right. A better way to put this into perspective is that a customer is never wrong.

It is important to understand that tastes, expectations, and preferences vary from one customer to the next. If the customer feels that your food is not salty enough, is undercooked, or overcooked, they are not wrong. It is what they want and how they feel. Understanding this important difference will offer you the right mindset to excel in customer satisfaction. Also, train your staff to have this mindset when handling upset customers.

2. Listen

If you want to calm down an angry customer quickly, pay attention. Carefully listen to your customers when they complain about your food truck service or menu. Maintain eye contact with them to make them feel that you are genuinely interested in what they have to say. Remember to say, “I understand.”  Such simple words can be enough to calm them down.

3. Put Down Your Defenses

You may have put your heart and soul into planning your menu, preparing the meals, and making other arrangements. This effort may make you take your customers’ complaints personally. Be careful not to fall into this trap. While you should be proud of yourself for all the tireless effort you made, you have to drop your defenses when handling an angry customer. 

4. Acknowledge the Complaint

It does not matter whether or not you feel you are responsible for the complaints made by the customer. The customer has chosen to complain to you. Notwithstanding the nature of the business, the buck stops with you as the owner of the food truck business. Offering a sincere apology is the best way to handle such complaints.

5. Propose a Solution That Benefits Your Food Truck Business

In any foodservice business, offering a solution is the only way to de-escalate a raging customer. Once you have carefully listened to the complaint and apologized, you need to offer a solution, and quickly. Sometimes it may mean preparing another meal. If this is not possible, you can offer them an alternative dish at no additional cost. At other times, neither of the suggested solutions will appease the upset customer. When this happens, you must refund them their money.

An Optimist’s Perspective

Unfortunately, there will always be a dissatisfied customer no matter how much of a perfectionist you are. The good news is, upset customers are the best learning tools a mobile food business can have. At Legion Food Trucks, we are aware of this and that is why we put our customers at the center of everything we do. Contact us today to help you turn your angry customers into invaluable assets.

The post How To Deal With Angry Customers at Your Food Truck Business appeared first on Legion Food Trucks.

If you are interested in taking your business to another level, read along to find out more about vinyl wraps for your food truck business and customizing your food truck design.

The Food Truck Design Stage

There are two important factors to take into consideration when designing a vehicle wrap for your food truck. The first key aspect is making the truck look attractive when it is closed and moving down the street. The second factor is seeing to it that the food truck design will maintain the same impact when the doors and the windows of the vehicle are open, and you are serving your customers.

Customizing Your Food Truck Design

Work with a vehicle wrap company when customizing your design. Your vinyl food truck design should be custom-made for your vehicle. A full vinyl wrap should serve as a reflection of your business, it should boost your brand and also be appealing to your customers.

Legion Food Trucks has been in the design industry for a long time now. We have in-house designers who spend time with customers. They will learn about the culture you have created, what appeals to your customers, and your future plans. They will then use this information to come up with an awesome design for the vinyl wrap of your truck. You should have all your ideas, slogans, and logos ready.

The Production Phase

Before we print the final product, we first print a sample. We send this sample to the client to look at important details like the selectedcolors and images. We can even mail the sample to the customer if they want to see and feel the wrap in person before we print the full-scale version. Once the customer is satisfied with the sample, the vinyl wrap is printed and laminated to protect it from damage by UV rays.

The Installation Phase

We have certified in-house installers that can apply your vinyl wrap in-house. If it is not possible to get your vehicle to us, we can send our expert crew to you.

The larger the food truck, the more sophisticated the installation process is. Big trucks have odd-shaped edges and parts. In such cases, the vinyl wraps come in several pieces. Special parts are cut out to fit around rivets, fenders, and windows. Our professional installers will give you a smooth finish without wrinkles or bubbles.

Develop Your Truck’s Personality

If you want to get a vinyl food truck wrap that displays the personality of your business using a strong visual identity, contact us today for a consultation. You will be one step ahead to achieving success.

The post Custom Vinyl Wraps Take Your Food Truck Design to the Next Level appeared first on Legion Food Trucks.

Used VS. New Custom Food Trucks: Ability to Make Money

Many people are under the impression that used food trucks will save them significant amounts of money, but last year more than 80 percent of food truck businesses failed in their first year of operations, and the main reason was due to  mechanical failures that created major inconveniences taking food trucks off the road. Ongoing repair costs, plus the fact that customers went to the competition saw massive losses for food truck businesses, and as a result, they fizzled out. Your ability to make a profit is everything, and if you don’t have a reliable food truck to serve as the hub of your business, you are left with a weak core. In order to be successful, custom food trucks are absolutely the best investment because they are configured to help you achieve your specific goals and come to you in perfect working order.

Custom Food Trucks are Designed for You

We just briefly touched on this, but in order to be successful in the food truck business, custom food trucks designed to help business owners hit their specific growth goals is key. Everything from your target customers, to the cuisine you serve, to the number of employees you have must go into the food truck design in order to create a platform that will function according to each food truck owner’s specific business goals.

Consider it this way: imagine a food truck business that serves up surf and turf. Currently, their menu consists of some basic items like lobster rolls, tacos and skewered snacks. They have two people working in the truck and sell in the evening down by the beach. But their growth goals are to include proper steaks to offer the true restaurant experience from their menus, sell downtown during the hectic lunch hour, and hire on two more employees. This means food trucks need to be customized to both facilitate current and future needs, and customization is where it’s at.

Custom Food Truck Platforms

The size of your food truck platform is crucial. Going too big is an unnecessary expense out the gate, and will only serve as a hole in your profits bucket. It is important to find food truck builders who can design a platform that will allow you to achieve current goals, and grow into your future space as a highly profitable business making successful growth moves.

Custom Food Trucks Foster Growth. Period.

Growth comes with custom food trucks that are designed to work around your business model as opposed to someone else’s. Make sure to partner with food truck builders who can design a food truck that makes sense for your customers, your business model, and your goals and you will be in a much better position to succeed and create a comfortable life for yourself grounded in great earning potential.

The post Why Custom Food Trucks Make Businesses More Successful than Used Vehicles appeared first on Legion Food Trucks.