5 Tips to Make Your Business on Wheels A Speedy Success

Food trucks are poised to take advantage of the new mobile economy. They integrate naturally into the world of mobile tech, with mobile point-of-sales payments and social media driving their businesses. Food trucks can use these tools in a natural and immediate way. IT Business Edge reports 94 percent of businesses claim their mobile efforts greatly enhance efficiency. But food trucks are already on this cutting edge by the sheer nature of their business, and they can take advantage of mobile technology to gain major ground against competition.

Photo by tedeytan via Flickr

Below are just a few tips to advance a mobile business to complement the world of mobile technology.

1. Learn About the Market

It may seem absurd, but simply knowing the growth potential of your business gives you an edge in developing and progressing. The Intuit Network reports mobile food will be a $2.7 billion industry by 2017. The report further confirms that one of the best attributes of a mobile food truck is instant interaction and an ability to alter the menu at will based on immediate customer reaction. The health food industry is booming, and mobile food trucks are able to tap into that market and provide local food items that are micro-targetted to the population.

2. Build Your Menu

Mobile Cuisine notes the vast majority of successful food trucks target market 8-10 main dishes that fit a theme or food style. Though it can be wise to expand beyond that, the menu needs to be focused. Mobile food trucks need to find a niche in the community and fill it.

3. Detail Your Finances

Any mobile business requires some upfront cost, and managing these costs in a practical way is the first step to success. Priceonomics reports that a starting a food truck business could easily cost upwards of $150,000, with $50,000 being the low end. The truck itself is the biggest cost, which can be close to $35,000 for one that has the space required for a larger project.

Food truck owners put in long days and work hard. They need financial tools to make life easy. Mobile payment systems that sync with phones or tablets are a must. Many mobile card readers also sync with accounting systems like Intuit Quickbooks to make recording income and expenditures incredibly easy.

4. Have a Contingency for Growth

One of the biggest faults in the early development of a mobile business is the lack of a growth plan, notes Fast Company. If your business takes off, how will you meet demand and increase production?