When you run a food truck business, there are several variables you’ll need to consider if you want to succeed. Food trucks can succeed in all kinds of settings—urban centers, small towns, beach destinations, ski resorts and many more. 

Before choosing where you want to run your truck, be sure and consider the pros and cons of each. In this post, we’ll talk about the benefits and drawbacks of operating your truck in a big city. While there’s lots of opportunity, you need to know all of the risks as well.  

1. Big City Competition is Fierce and Plentiful

Los Angeles is one of the food truck capitals of the world. You can earn lots of money in a market like this—but keep in mind that the competition is also plentiful and intense. 

There are more food truck businesses in operation, many of which have been around for many years. Customers in these cities are savvy, have high expectations, and lots of diverse options to choose from. They are often looking for unique food of high quality. 

2. Zoning Laws

Running your food truck in the big city means you also have more zoning laws, permits, and red tape to satisfy. 

Understand the laws of your state and city when it comes to starting a food truck business. Knowing the laws will show you where you can operate and under what regulations. You’ll avoid fines and getting shut down. 

3. Plentiful Opportunities

Not only are there more food truck customers in the big city, but you’ll also have more catering opportunities. You can set up a spot at concerts, art events, business conventions, and the myriad of other social activities that take place. Just be sure and find out what the requirements are for getting approved for these types of events.

When you know your customers’ niche, you can reach them in new and different ways. There is plenty of room for growth when you embrace food truck culture and run your business with your customer in mind. 

4. Build Your Entrepreneurial Skills

Having a food truck is an excellent first step into the world of entrepreneurship. Running a truck lets you become your own boss and teaches you strategies for generating your own income. Several professionals who own entire fleets started with a single food truck. 

Taking your food truck to a larger city will certainly challenge you in your entrepreneurial skills. You will have to find more ways than ever to think outside the box and grow your revenue while competing with so many other creative food entrepreneurs.

5. Easier Than a Restaurant

Perhaps your major goal is to start a brick and mortar restaurant in the big city. This is expensive just to get the business started, and you’ll also have large overhead costs. 

A food truck provides you a test run to show people what kind of dishes you specialize in. You can then take these earnings, and use it to build capital to start a brick and mortar location. 

Best of all, you’ll already have a built-in customer base. 

Big City Food Truck Pros and Cons

These food truck pros and cons can let you know where you stand when you’re thinking of setting up shop in the big city. Running a food truck is a labor of love, so always do your research and be informed in order to make the right decisions for your business.

Ready for a quote on your first truck? Or want to add another on to your food truck fleet? Contact us today for a free quote.

Want more food truck advice? Check out more blog posts here!

Thinking about starting a food truck? Request a free custom quote and one of our food truck specialists will help you design the truck of your dreams.

Stay up to date on everything Custom Concessions has to offer! Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

The post Food Truck Pros And Cons: Operating Your Food Truck In A Big City appeared first on Custom Concessions.

What if your food truck could become the hottest new business in town? No matter how good your food is, becoming a successful business is all about marketing. Unfortunately, many owners don’t know how to take their food truck marketing to the next level.

A good social media strategy can help propel your business to new heights. Keep reading to learn more about how to improve that strategy and achieve serious success!

1. Jazz Up the Menu

Many owners think their social media strategy should be limited to social media platforms. The reality is that many social media initiatives take place “off-screen.”

For example, social media users will want to check out your menu online before coming to the food truck. This gives you a perfect chance to jazz up your menu before posting it.

Try to add plenty of images and an eye-catching cover. Don’t be afraid to upsell: recommend which dishes and drinks complement each other for maximum flavor!

2. Make It Visual

Earlier, we talked about the importance of making the menu more visual. However, that wisdom extends to your entire social media strategy.

While it’s not the only thing your customers care about, most of them have visited your social media page to learn more about your food. This is why you should prominently feature professional photographs of your tastiest dishes.

Feature those images in your posts and encourage customers to like, comment, and share. This helps get new customers’ attention while turning the old ones into brand ambassadors for your food truck.

3. Use QR Codes

So far, we have focused on how social media can drive new customers to your food truck. But have you considered how to steer your food truck customers to your social media platforms?

One surefire way to do this is QR codes. Customers can simply scan the code with their smartphone and are instantly taken to your social media.

You can use a similar strategy to drive customers to your website. It is highly effective because it takes most of the work out of finding your truck online.

4. Multi-Platform

How many social media platforms is your business currently using? Chances are that you’d be better off by adding a new platform (or two, or three).

Different platforms have different strengths. Facebook makes it easy for customers to engage with you and for you to track analytics. Meanwhile, Instagram makes it easy to focus on your absolute best food photography and share it with users online.

Keep in mind that various third-party apps help you cross-post and schedule future posts. This helps you post to multiple platforms without giving up all of your free time.

5. Advertise Major Events

When used correctly, social media is the perfect vehicle to advertise your food truck. And those advertisements should focus heavily on major events.

Are you unveiling a new dish, or maybe taking part in a downtown block party? Use social media to make customers aware of what’s going on.

These advertisements build anticipation and word-of-mouth advertising. And anyone who finds out after the fact will have serious FOMO, making them likelier to come to the next major event you throw.

6. Online-Only Coupons

The quickest way to a customer’s heart is through their wallet. That’s why you should feature online-only coupons and deals.

Customers will get instant gratification from the ability to save money. And making those deals a regular occurrence (such as posting new ones every month) is a great way to get customers coming back.

The more they save, the more they buy. And they’ll be happy to tell others about the great deals they found online.

7. Engage With Customers

Social media marketing must be different from traditional marketing. If all of your posts are pure advertisement, it will quickly turn away customers who want something more substantial.

This is why you should have posts that engage with your customers. For example, you can let customers vote on what your next new dish will be. Or you can ask them to post pictures of their favorite meals.

Inviting such engagement increases loyalty and helps your online community thrive. 

8. All Analytics, All the Time

Redesigning your social media strategy means making several big changes. It’s important to understand whether these changes are having a major impact on your business.

First, don’t forget to use the analytics of your chosen social media platform. Facebook, for example, provides an easy way for you to look at every aspect of user engagement with your professional page.

Second, try to cross-reference those analytics results with your revenue. If you can tie an increase in customers to new social media strategies, this means you’re on the right track with your strategy.

9. Regular Posting

Retaining customers online is just as important as retaining them offline. In order to do this, you need to regularly post new content.

If you only post one or twice a month, you will not have much customer engagement. Furthermore, a low post count may keep your page buried by the social media algorithms.

Try to commit to posting once a day or several times a week. This gives loyal customers something to look forward to without completely clogging their timeline.

10. Networking Synergy

Fortunately, you don’t have to reinvent the wheel when you reinvent your social media strategy. Old techniques such as networking still work wonders.

Let’s say you want to be a brand that many people trust. One of the easiest ways to do so is to partner up with an existing brand.

Try to get a well-known food blogger or influencer to create original content about your food truck. Additionally, see if they will regularly mention you to their own group of fans.

This technique builds credibility with potential customers while letting you benefit from someone else’s built-in audience.

Food Truck Marketing: Serve It Up

Now you know the secret to food truck marketing via social media. But do you know the secret to running a successful truck?

Want more food truck advice? Check out more blog posts here!

Thinking about starting a food truck? Request a free custom quote and one of our food truck specialists will help you design the truck of your dreams.

Stay up to date on everything Custom Concessions has to offer! Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

The post Food Truck Marketing: 10 Ways to Improve Your Social Media Strategy appeared first on Custom Concessions.

Photo: Freepik

The food truck industry is not for the faint of heart. It takes a lot of hard work to get where you want to go with your truck and your business. You can expect to work a whole lot of hours, expend lots of creative energy, and learn a whole lot about how to run a small business. You have to have a drive to succeed.

If you think you have the necessary determination, awesome! However, there are also other important ingredients you will want to have if you plan on running a food truck business.

4. Your Food Truck—Of Course!

Let’s get the most obvious ingredient out of the way right at the top—the food truck. Of course, you have to have a food truck to run a food truck business.

Our advice? Don’t purchase the cheapest food truck you can find, because that mistake will be costly in the long run. Going with a customized truck is your best option.

A truck made just for you will look the way you want it, with custom graphics that match your branding. You can even add a shadow box TV on the outside to showcase your menu, or custom rooftop sign boards for that extra touch of glam.

Your custom truck will also have all the right equipment for your particular food enterprise. Need specialty equipment like a pizza oven, espresso machine, or ice cream dipping cabinet? Done. Have a specific way you want your kitchen laid out? No problem! That’s exactly why having a custom truck is the way to go: you can make sure everything is designed to your desired specifications.

3. Recipes Your Customers Will Love

This is one of the most important ingredients on this list, because it’s your actual product. Don’t try to be the next McDonald’s or Subway. Try to be the next you. You can achieve this by serving up your own unique recipes.

Your food has to stand out from the crowd. You want your food to be so good and so unique that customers can’t get it anywhere else. Do you have dishes that you are known for among your family and friends? Try those out on your food truck customers and see how they go over.

2. Your Business Plan 

If you are trying to break into the food truck industry, then you’ve probably already heard that a business plan is essential.

In order to be as accurate as possible, your business plan has to map out everything, including one time and recurring expenses: 

• Initial inventory, and restocking costs
• Employee pay
• Your salary
• Your food truck build
• Insurance (for your physical truck and for your business as well)
• Licensing and Permits
• Storage (if you don’t have somewhere to park your truck when it’s not in use)
• Gas for Transportation

This is not an exhaustive list by any means, so be sure to add any other foreseeable costs to your business plan. These costs may vary, depending on the type of food you plan to serve.

The more detailed your business plan, the better prepared you will be to face the day to day running of your food truck operation. An impressive business plan can even help you secure your food truck financing.

1. A Vision for Your Food Truck Business

Successful business owners need a vision, food truck owners included. A little imagination never hurt anyone, right?

Part of having a vision is being able to picture yourself succeeding, and making a plan to get there. It takes a whole lot of creativity to be a food truck chef and a business owner at the same time.

In order to make your vision a reality, you need to create concrete goals that will help you get there. Set aside time for planning and strategizing. Have a set period after which you will review your goals, and see if you have put in the work you planned to. If you have, congratulations! Now set your next goal and keep on trucking. If you haven’t, examine what you can do differently to meet those goals by your next self-review.

Don’t Let Your Food Truck Dream Flop

Some of these ingredients are going to take a lot of work, creativity, and trial and error. Don’t let that scare you away from pursuing your goals. Every successful business has to start somewhere, and food trucks are no exception.

Want more food truck advice? Check out more blog posts here!

Thinking about starting a food truck? Request a free custom quote and one of our food truck specialists will help you design the truck of your dreams.

Stay up to date on everything Custom Concessions has to offer! Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

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Starting a food truck business can be intimidating, but when it’s your dream, you shouldn’t let the scary stuff stop you. Being afraid of the unknown can make you stall out before you even begin, so it’s important to start by taking manageable steps toward your goals.

In this post, we’re going to share a few ideas of easy things you can do to get going on your food truck business.

Brainstorm Ideas

Everyone has different ways of doing this. For you, maybe it consists of writing down all your scattered dreams in a notebook. Maybe it means sitting down with a friend or partner for coffee and bouncing thoughts off each other. Sometimes just talking about a dream out loud or getting it down on paper will make it feel more real.

Here are some things to think about at this stage:

• Your menu. Do you know what kind of food do you want to serve at your food truck? What are some of your personal favorites? What kinds of things do you enjoy cooking? Are there recipes that friends or family have complimented you on?
• Your brand. Most successful businesses have a recognizable style, whether it’s thematic or simply aesthetic. You could have a themed food truck based on the type of cuisine you will be serving, a place you love, or even an era in time that speaks to you. Or your look could be aesthetic only, defined by a certain color palette or design style. Whatever you choose, having a consistent brand will help customers pick your food truck out of the crowd.
• Your quirks. Is there something unique you could add to your food truck to make it especially memorable? Is there anything you could do to make the customer experience stand out?

There are no wrong answers during the brainstorming stage, so you have nothing to be afraid of in writing your ideas down. Who knows? Something that might have sounded crazy in your head might just turn out to be your best idea yet.

Do Some Research

Simply learning more about the food truck industry will help you get a better hold on how you might go about starting your own truck. Find out what other food trucks are in your area and eat at them so you can see how they do what they do. Read blogs and listen to podcasts not only about food, but about the business side of the restaurant world.

Another thing you can do is talk to local small business owners and ask how they got their start. Find out how they got the funding to start their venture. Ask what mistakes they made along the way and what advice they would give to other small business owners who are just starting out.

Surrounding yourself with people who are like-minded (food or business wise) will help fuel your inspiration.

Find Out About Laws & Resources

Do you have any idea what kind of licensing and permits are needed to open a food business in your city? Contact your local health department to find out what specific food-related permits you will need to think about obtaining.

Visit the U.S. Small Business Administration website and find out about all the legal things you need to get your business off the ground. You’ll eventually need to register your business name, get a business permit, open a business bank account, and get insurance to protect your food truck business.

Does your city, county or state have any resources for helping small businesses? Find out about any small business development centers available to you and take advantage of them. Schedule a meeting with an advisor who will be able to help you navigate all the mysteries of your local business world.

Set Aside Time for Planning

If you are so busy running around in your day-to-day life that you can barely think, you will never get your food truck dream off the ground.

Set aside a few hours every week when you will spend some concentrated time planning for your food truck. Whether that means sitting at a local coffee shop writing down ideas or hitting the pavement and walking around your town to find potential locations for your truck, setting aside time will help you make your business goals a priority.

If you really want to make your food truck a reality, this time should be sacred. Don’t let other plans push it out of the way. If something really important does come up, don’t just skip your planning time for the week altogether. Reschedule it for later in the day or for another day that week.

Get a Quote

How will you ever get your food truck business off the ground if you don’t have a specific goal that you are working towards?

Knowing how much your future food truck could potentially cost will give you a number to start saving for. Or it might give you the motivation to apply for a small business loan and see what the possibilities are.

Requesting a quote will help you hammer out details you may not have thought about before, because the food truck expert helping you will know all the ins and outs of different trucks and equipment.

Getting a quote will also help make your nebulous ideas more concrete. There’s no harm in just getting an idea of the cost! It doesn’t attach any strings, but it will nudge you that much closer to making your food truck dream a reality.

Ready? Go!

So what are you waiting for? Start moving on some of these ideas this week. You might be surprised at how much taking some small steps will help you put your food truck dream within reach.

Want more food truck advice? Check out more blog posts here!

Thinking about starting a food truck? Request a free custom quote and one of our food truck specialists will help you design the truck of your dreams.

Stay up to date on everything Custom Concessions has to offer! Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

The post Before You Begin: Steps You Can Take Toward Making Your Food Truck Dream a Reality appeared first on Custom Concessions.

There are more than 4,000 food trucks in the US and you want to join the action. 

Whether you’re a small business or entrepreneur, what better way to make some sales than to go directly to the people who are interested in your products?

However, this extra convenience does come with a cost. But don’t worry! Here are 3 tips to help you find the food truck financing you need:

1. Work With Other Food Truck Enthusiasts 

Chances are, you’re not the only business who has considered using a food truck; you might even have some friends who are as equally inspired as you.

Partnering with a fellow entrepreneur or other local small business can cut the cost of buying a food truck in half because you share the responsibility of food truck financing. 

Additionally, partnering with someone gives you a whole new skill set to get advice from. And if cash-flow becomes scarce, you won’t be on your own to solve every problem.

However, there are things to consider before working with another food truck enthusiast.

While your financing costs will be split, so will your profits. And you may also have to compromise on certain ideas in order to come up with something you can both agree on.  

2. Start Like A Seed, Then Grow

If your business’s finances are tight right now, but you don’t want to work with a partner, starting a catering service first can be a more affordable option.

If you don’t have prior experience in the food truck industry, consider using this time to gain advice from other food truckers.

This will help your business achieve maximum success and avoid common food trucking mistakes. Also, make sure you learn food truck laws and regulations to avoid unnecessary fines.

Then, once you’re familiar with the industry, and your business is in a better financial season, come up with a food truck financing plan, and then go for it!

3. Maximize Your Cash-Flow Potential

Awesome tools typically aren’t free, and food trucks cost between $50,000 and $200,000.

If you already have credit card debt, pay it off first to ensure your business will have enough cash-flow for your food truck financing.

If you choose to take out loans, do your best to minimize them by saving up a portion of your profits first or look for investors. This way, your loans can stay small and won’t take too much out of your profits.

Unless you have a degree in business or accounting, it’s also wise to talk to a financial expert to help determine the best food truck financing option tailored to your business’s specific goals and needs.

Final Thoughts on Food Truck Financing

Food truck financing is not an easy endeavor, but it’s definitely not impossible. Many food truckers have found a way to make it happen, and you can too. 

Once you decide it’s time to purchase a food truck, feel free to contact us! We can help you find the right option for your business and customize a truck to meet your needs. 

Want more food truck advice? Check out more blog posts here!

Thinking about starting a food truck? Request a free custom quote and one of our food truck specialists will help you design the truck of your dreams.

Stay up to date on everything Custom Concessions has to offer! Like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter.

The post Food Truck Financing: Keeping Your Meals and Money Mobile appeared first on Custom Concessions.

Food trucks are game-changers, the food is typically pretty darn good and they are becoming rather popular, which is a great thing for those people who love to eat (so basically everyone) and also for those people who are interested in starting their own food truck business.

For those people who are interested in starting up their own food truck, here are five truths that you might want to know.

5. It Costs More Money Than Some Might Think

You might not want to start up your own restaurant because it basically will cost a fortune. Therefore, you turn to the food truck department … which is still pretty pricey.

Just like with anything, the price completely depends on where you buy the truck, and what you all need so you can run shop.

Don’t let that initial price scare you away, though. If your business is thriving, the money will come flying in.

4. Weather Is Either Going To Be Your Best Or Worst Friend

Rainy days can be brutal for business. Sunshine, on the other hand, never gets old.

Rain or shine doesn’t really flow with the customers.

3. You Are The Boss

Everyone dreams about being their own boss. Well, if you start up a food truck business, guess what you will become? Your own boss!

However, being your own boss can still be pretty stressful since you literally have to worry about everything.

2. Vacation Time Is Likely Going To Be A Thing Of The Past

If you are all about that vacation life, this might scare you away: The food truck game requires a lot of your time. Therefore, you are going to be constantly working. As a result of you constantly working, you won’t be able to go on vacations.

10-14 hours (perhaps more) of work every single day is pretty brutal, and you likely won’t be able to escape reality by taking a vacation for quite some time.

1. You Are Going To Make A Lot Of People Happy

Food makes people happy, especially when the food tastes amazing. Of course, your food is going to make people flock to your food truck. Putting both of those things together, you are going to make a lot of people happy, and that’s what it’s all about, right?

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