I Didn’t Build The Towing Playbook Because I Had Towing Figured Out

I didn’t build The Towing Playbook because I had all the answers. I built it because I spent years learning what happens when you don’t have them. I’ve made pricing mistakes, hiring mistakes, and management mistakes. I’ve trusted the wrong people, tried to keep too much information in my head, and worked ridiculous hours because the businesses I helped build depended too heavily on me being there. I’ve fixed problems in the middle of the night that probably could have been prevented in the middle of the afternoon.

I’ve had days where the phone wouldn’t stop ringing and I thought we were killing it. I’ve also had days where the phone wouldn’t stop ringing and realized that being busy and running a successful business are not necessarily the same thing. After 17 years in towing, I’ve learned a lot. A lot of it the hard way. And that is exactly why The Towing Playbook exists.

I Started Out Thinking Cheap Was a Competitive Advantage

When I started my first towing company, I charged $50 for a tow. I’ve written about that mistake before, but it’s worth mentioning again because it represents how I learned a lot of lessons in this industry. At the time, my thinking made perfect sense to me. I had one truck. I worked out of my driveway. I didn’t have the overhead of the larger towing companies, so why should I charge what they charged? I could be cheaper.

The phone rang. Customers came. I got busy. Naturally, I thought it was working. What I didn’t understand yet was that I wasn’t just establishing my price. I was establishing what my time, equipment, risk, and service were worth. Eventually I learned something that I think a lot of towing operators learn: you can be incredibly busy while building a business that doesn’t work. That lesson cost me money, but it taught me something I still use today.

Then I Learned That Growth Doesn’t Fix Bad Systems

Eventually, the businesses got bigger. There were more calls, more trucks, more drivers, more customers, and more responsibility. Every time the business grew, something interesting happened: the problems grew with it.

When you have one truck, you can keep a surprising amount of information in your head. You know when the oil was changed. You know which strap needs replacing. You know that customer still owes you money. You know that one driver needs some extra coaching. You remember that somebody called yesterday with a complaint, and you know which truck has that hydraulic hose that’s starting to look questionable.

Then you add another truck, another driver, another dispatcher, hundreds of calls, and eventually thousands. At some point, your brain stops being a very good management system. But if you haven’t built anything to replace it, the company still expects you to remember everything.

So you compensate. You work more. You answer more calls. You check everything yourself. You solve everybody’s problems. For a while, that works too. Until it doesn’t.

I Became the System

This might be one of the biggest mistakes I’ve made in business. Instead of building systems that could operate without me, I became the system. If somebody didn’t know something, they called me. If a truck broke, they called me. If dispatch had a problem, they called me. If a customer was angry, they called me. If somebody didn’t show up, I covered it. If something needed fixing, I fixed it.

When you operate that way long enough, something dangerous happens: you start believing that being needed means you’re doing a good job. Sometimes it does. But sometimes it means you haven’t built the business properly. That was a difficult distinction for me to learn because I take pride in being the guy who can figure things out.

I can drive the truck, dispatch the calls, talk to the customer, fix equipment, train somebody, deal with a complaint, build a procedure, and solve whatever problem landed in front of me. Those are useful skills, but being capable of doing everything doesn’t mean you should have to do everything. A good business shouldn’t require one person to hold the entire thing together.

Some of My Biggest Lessons Came From People

The longer I’ve been in this industry, the more I’ve realized that towing isn’t really a truck business. It’s a people business that happens to use trucks.

I’ve hired people who surprised me, and I’ve hired people who disappointed me. I’ve watched inexperienced operators become people I would trust with almost anything. I’ve also watched good people burn out. I’ve had employees quit, had difficult conversations, handled customer complaints, watched dispatchers get overwhelmed, and made management decisions that I would handle differently today.

All of those experiences changed how I think about running a towing company. Policies matter. Procedures matter. Accountability matters. But so does remembering that there is a human being on the other side of them. That became one of the principles behind The Towing Playbook: People First. That doesn’t mean no accountability. It means creating an environment where people actually have a reasonable opportunity to succeed.

A Good Operator Shouldn’t Have to Guess

Think about how many things we expect a new tow truck operator to somehow know. How do we want them to communicate with customers? What happens when equipment breaks? What gets reported during a circle check? When does a truck get taken out of service? How should cash be handled? What information does dispatch need? What happens after an accident? How do we deal with a complaint? What does “good performance” actually look like?

In a lot of companies, the real training program is basically: follow somebody around for a few days and figure it out. Then six months later, we’re frustrated because the employee isn’t doing things the way we wanted. That’s not always an employee problem. Sometimes we never clearly taught them what success looked like.

That realization changed the way I think about procedures. An SOP isn’t paperwork for the sake of paperwork. It’s a promise to the person doing the job: you don’t have to guess.

The Same Applies to Owners

Owners shouldn’t have to guess either. You shouldn’t need to wonder whether you’re actually making money. You shouldn’t have to search through text messages to figure out when a truck was last repaired. You shouldn’t need one employee who “knows where everything is.” You shouldn’t have your entire customer collection process stored inside someone’s memory, and you shouldn’t need to work every waking hour just to keep everything functioning.

I know what that kind of business feels like because I’ve lived it. That’s a big part of why I’m building The Towing Playbook.

I’m Still Learning

This part matters to me. I don’t want The Towing Playbook to ever become me standing on a pedestal telling other towing companies how they’re supposed to operate. I’m still learning. I’m still making mistakes. I’m still changing my mind when experience proves me wrong. There will probably be things I teach today that I improve five years from now, and that’s exactly what should happen.

Seventeen years in towing hasn’t taught me that I know everything. It’s taught me how much there is to know. But it has also given me something valuable: experience. Not theoretical experience, but the kind you earn from answering the phone, climbing into the truck, dealing with the customer, making payroll, fixing equipment, hiring people, losing people, making bad decisions, making good ones, and showing up again the next morning.

I’m Building What I Wish Somebody Had Given Me

That’s probably the simplest explanation of The Towing Playbook. I’m building the system I wish somebody had handed me years ago.

I wish I’d had something that could have helped me price properly, hire better, train people consistently, understand which numbers actually mattered, and build systems before I desperately needed them. I wish I’d had something that could have helped me understand earlier that working more hours wasn’t always the answer.

Would I have listened to all of it when I was younger? Probably not. I was stubborn. I probably needed to learn a few things the hard way. But maybe I wouldn’t have needed to learn everything the hard way. And maybe somebody else doesn’t either.

Better Systems. Better Businesses.

That tagline means more to me than simply making companies more efficient. Better systems should make businesses better for the people inside them. Drivers should know what’s expected of them. Dispatchers should have the tools to do their jobs. Managers shouldn’t have to carry an entire company around in their heads. Owners shouldn’t have to destroy themselves just to keep the doors open.

Customers should receive consistent service regardless of which employee answers the phone or which truck arrives. When something goes wrong — because eventually something always does — there should be a process for dealing with it.

That’s the company I think we should be trying to build. Not perfect. Not problem-free. Just better than yesterday.

That’s what The Towing Playbook is about. It isn’t about having all the answers. It’s about building better systems from the lessons we’ve already paid for.

The Towing Playbook — Bob Cook