There's a self-motivating aspect of engagement with real-time business information, says Overdrive contributor and owner-operator business coach Gary Buchs in the video above. The task of bookkeeping is best done day by day, rather than months in arrears. Playing bookkeeping "catch-up doesn't work really well," Buchs said. Say you're behind and you go back and work on recording January's numbers, for instance, "does that give you anything you can use today?"
Rather, to catch up, he's found, it's best to "do last week first, and go back from there. If you do it that way, you gain a reward psychologically, because you're looking at current information." Take your most recent week and record costs and revenues, then track back another week, then another. That will give you actionable intelligence about your recent business performance. And as Red Eye Radio host Eric Harley emphasizes, it's a way to climb Everest one hill at a time -- to make a seemingly impossible task achievable.
The video above excerpts Harley's roundtable conversation at the 2023 Mid-America Trucking Show with owner-op business coach and Overdrive contributor Gary Buchs, ATBS' Mike Hosted, and Overdrive Editor Todd Dills about the Partners in Business Overdrive/ATBS coproduction.
Catch more in the video. The full talk can be heard via Red Eye Radio's "Extra Mile" podcast or via the Overdrive Radio podcast at this link Find brief excerpts from the talk in the eight-video playlist below.
Owners looking for additional business tips, among a myriad of other topics, can find more in the Overdrive/ATBS-coproduced "Partners in Business" manual for new and established owner-operators, a comprehensive guide to running a small trucking business. Click here to download the updated 2023 edition of the book free of charge.
