Building a Reputation in the Trucking Business: Tips from Ayan Malikov

The owner of one of the fastest-growing logistics companies has bet on word-of-mouth marketing. 

Around 88% of consumers, globally, trust customer recommendations, and nearly 13% of all consumer sales are driven by word-of-mouth marketing, according to WiserNotify data. How do you use this marketing strategy if you work in a highly specialized market segment? Ayan Malikov, owner of Nomad Express LLC, shares his experience and tips for creating a successful valuable cargo transportation business, emphasizing the importance of reputation and customer focus.

Start Small 

Ayan is sure the basic principles of work are perfectly trained at the local level. He started his business with local transportation: “We were engaged in transportation in and around Los Angeles, and, of course, we were not the only ones. But this is how the team was formed and work standards were defined: careful and high-quality packaging of each item, delivery to any point at the client’s request, logistical skills.”

Advice: Gain experience and hone your skills before scaling your business.

Find Your Niche 

It is possible to form a unique selling proposition in any field. Thus, Ayan’s trucking company began to specialize in the transportation of antiques and valuable items: mainly furniture from auction houses, unique and new interior items, and paintings.

“Competition in this area is not too high, but reputation plays a crucial role. To have partners such as large stores and auction houses, it must be impeccable,” says Malikov.

Advice: Choose a niche where reputation plays a key role. This will allow you to stand out from the competition and form a circle of clients who value reliability and professionalism.

Focus on the Level of Service 

The best impressions are always left by your willingness not only to comply with the basic principles of working with clients but also to take into account individual requests. Thus, Ayan chose the concept of “white-glove service” for his company: “Requests can be different: not just bring this item into the house, but put it in the living room, and for this, remove this sofa, move these chairs, put it in place of this table. We do all this for one price, any clarifications are included in it, we do not charge extra, and in this regard, we are very much winning in comparison with other companies.”

Accuracy, delicate handling, and conscientiousness are practiced as part of corporate training, even among long-time employees. Malikov’s company works with valuable cargo. This is not simple standard furniture that can be easily repaired and quickly restored. Unique designer items, expensive antique furniture, and hand-made antiques must be handled with extreme care, without haste, without sparing material for packaging, lifting, moving, and installing as carefully as possible.

Advice: Offer a unique service that will be your competitive advantage.

Invest in Professionals 

Even the most significant advantages of a business can be lost in the eyes of customers if they do not correspond to the level of performers. Therefore, special attention will have to be paid to the selection and training of personnel. In general, Ayan hires employees who already have experience and a good reputation, with at least a year of experience, pays their work higher than is accepted in the moving market, constantly trains them, conducts training once a month for beginners, for long-haul drivers traveling between the East Coast and the West Coast. The company strictly monitors that they have a clean record, and conducts drug tests.

Motivation of employees is of great importance in a customer-oriented business – first of all, a system of incentives and feedback. For example, Ayan’s company organizes competitions between the Los Angeles and New York teams. There is also a bonus system based on dividing by quarters: “One earning is if a person works for three months, another is if they work for six months, then nine months,” Malikov lists. “An employee who has worked without complaints for a year receives annual bonuses. In addition, if we finish the year well, with a profit, we time incentive payments for the New Year.”

Advice: Hire professionals and create a motivation system for employees.

Put the Client First 

The reputation of a customer-oriented business is built on an individual approach, flexible conditions, and long-term relationships. The narrower the segment and the more select the audience, the more important the behind-the-scenes reviews: they can both attract new customers to you and turn old ones away from you. In Ayan’s case, the presence of “old-school” clients, for whom personal contact and trust are important, is of great weight. They contact on recommendation but then work with the company directly. “Our clients are mainly older people who value long-term cooperation ‘by acquaintance’,” Ayan clarifies. “We go to meet them as much as possible – somewhere we make concessions, somewhere we speed up delivery, they see that we do everything efficiently and on time, and this allows us to build comfortable relationships.”

When working with large companies, Ayan recommends constantly monitoring reviews, communicating with clients, and asking them what could be changed or improved. And in the case of personal clients who make orders online, be flexible and regularly provide discounts.

Advice: Build long-term relationships with clients based on an individual approach and flexible conditions.

Develop as Your Business Scales 

Ayan’s company started doing transportation in 2021, first locally and then to other states. Already their second client became a regular. They were increasingly recommended as a white-glove service company capable of making deliveries not only within Los Angeles and California. “It can be said that we focused on this niche precisely thanks to networking and word of mouth,” Ayan recalls.

Inevitably, advertising was required – including the Yelp and Google platforms. At the same time, it was necessary to take into account the narrow specialization and non-standard logistics, as well as the need to regulate laws between states, differences in the execution of documents, qualification requirements, and increased insurance.

Today, the logistics system has been simplified, thanks to the appearance of points in Los Angeles and New York and a hub in Florida, from where you can deliver goods locally.

“Now we are going to introduce a small logistics CRM, like large companies like Amazon, and FedEx,” Ayan shares. “This was not required until there were such scales, but now it is under development.”

Advice: Gradually look for new growth opportunities as you strengthen ties and your client base, and introduce modern technologies as needed.

Constantly Track Development and Set New Goals 

Business growth is important to record at each stage – current figures give the business weight in the eyes of potential customers. You must be prepared to provide a picture of success at any time.

For example, today the company has 6 drivers working in California. Twice a month they make flights across the country. America is huge, it takes two weeks to travel from coast to coast and back. In local cities and states, employees work daily, covering the needs of the north and south. And just recently the maximum was a radius of 200-300 miles within one state, and they did not travel further than San Diego and San Francisco. Starting with 20 deliveries, last year they were already doing 150-200, this year did 300 a month for the first time, and now they are reaching 350.

A thorough understanding of the dynamics of development inspires and gives confidence to both the owners and employees of the business: knowing in numbers how the audience and geography gradually expanded and logistics were optimized, you can predict the future.

“Compared to last year, we increased our income by 30 percent. In this sense, we correspond to our trend – a certain growth rate. The average increase of 30 percent occurs with us every year, starting from 2021,” says Ayan.

The company is not the leading company yet, there are bigger ones, but the rapid growth shows that the strategic goal of becoming number 1 on the West Coast looks achievable. Now Malikov’s goal is to take the lead in California, Nevada, and Arizona.

Stick to the Main Marketing Strategy 

The expansion of Ayan’s business to other states occurred primarily due to customer recommendations. Building a reputation in a highly specialized field with extremely cautious, distrustful, and demanding customers is not easy. In this case, you have to constantly confirm your reputation—any negative feedback can affect the image that has been carefully built over the years. But if this is successful, word of mouth will become an unbeatable trump card.

Ayan Malikov’s advice: “The most important thing is to work honestly. In America, it is not easy to achieve success, but persistent and honest work overcomes any obstacles. The main thing is to be respectful of everything – your business, the company, subordinates, clients. People value this the most. And it is this reputation that ultimately precedes you.”

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