Tidy Van, Tidy Mind: Why You Need Racking

If you’ve recently become a self-employed tradesman, then it can all feel a little overwhelming. Like many, you might have been working for a company or an agency for a long time before deciding to start your own business. Now that you’ve finally taken the plunge, the relative lack of structure and certainty could really be bearing down on you. One of the many things you might be mulling over is whether or not to invest in van racking. Here are some of the benefits you should be aware of.

One thing that you may not be aware of is that fitting van racking can lower your insurance premium. The difference can get up to 5%. Although this isn’t much, every penny counts when you’re self-employed and trying to turn a profit. Insurance premiums are calculated based on your relative risk, and underwriters consider vans with racking to be slightly lower in risk. This is due to a number of reasons. The van is considered safer to use, and racking is taken as a sign that you take greater care of your vehicle. When you’re buying vehicle or business insurance through an independent broker, one of the first things they’ll ask is whether or not you have racking.

Image from Wikimedia

 

Perhaps the most prominent benefit to using van racking is that you’ll save yourself a lot of time and hassle in the long run. You’ve probably heard that old maxim “time is money”. This needs to be at the front of your mind constantly when you’re running your own business. All that time you spend looking for tools and shuffling around the contents in the back of your van will affect your overall profit margins. When you add up all the time you’ve spent messing around over a year, you might realise that you’ve wasted a day or two in total. With the use of van racking kits, however, you’ll be able to keep all of your equipment completely organised, saving you a lot of time and making your work marginally less stressful. This will ultimately translate as a healthier bottom line!

Finally, using van racking will leave your customers with a more professional opinion of your business. First impressions count for any business model, but this is especially true for self-employed tradesmen. You’re going to be relying heavily on word-of-mouth marketing, which means it’s extremely important to create the right impression. If you turn up to a job, and the customer sees that the back of your van is a disorderly pile of different tools and equipment, it’s not going to reflect too well on you. This is even more true with the number of cowboys out there, which naturally makes people suspicious. However, if you turn up with a van that’s meticulously organised and well-equipped, your customers will be able to see that you’re highly professional, and that you really care about the service you’re delivering. I’m sure that there are great tradesmen out there who are fairly disorganised, but these little details can have a huge impact on your professional reputation.

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