Systems- The how and why

I've been in the towing industry for about 17 years. I started as a driver, learning everything I could — how the trucks worked, how repairs and maintenance were done. I listened to the dispatchers when they talked to customers. I listened to managers when they talked to employees. I paid attention because I wasn't just interested in becoming a tow truck driver. I was interested in running the whole thing.

I started my first towing company in 2017 because I wanted to do things differently than the companies I'd worked for. I thought there had to be a better way. Boy, was I in for something else.

I expected the phone to ring off the hook, like it did at the other companies I'd worked for. I figured I'd get a Google listing and a website up, and the calls would just come in. That's not what happened. There were days the phone didn't ring at all. But I kept pushing. Within three years, I'd gotten that first company to nearly $1 million in revenue. By year five, we'd done over $3 million combined.

I'm not saying this to brag — that would be the wrong thing to do. And I'm not saying I did everything right, either. I made a lot of mistakes. Mistakes that cost me money, time, and relationships.

Over the years, I started tracking how the business was doing — a notebook here, an Excel spreadsheet there, the bank account somewhere else. I didn't have a system I recognized as a system. But looking back, I was slowly building the systems I use today.

Here's the thing about systems: they make the work more efficient. If you tow cars, you already have a system for it — we all do, even if we each do it a little differently. I don't need to explain how to load a car in this post, but it matters to understand that we've all been running on systems without ever calling them that.

You have a system for answering the phone — whether you say "thank you for calling [company name]" or just say the name, you've got a way you do it, questions you ask, things you say. You have a system for your books — how you record jobs, revenue, expenses. Almost everything you do runs on some kind of system. The problem is, most of the time it isn't written down. It just lives in your head, because you're the owner.

That's why I created the Towing Playbook. The systems were in my head, and I kept forgetting how I'd done things — I just knew that I had. So I started writing it all down. I started building spreadsheets and standard operating procedures. I'm not perfect, but what I put together is everything it took me to build not one but two towing businesses — the steps I took and the lessons I learned along the way.

The Towing Playbook is my version of how to start, run, and grow a towing company. The systems, modules, forms, and SOPs are 17 years of experience — and thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of dollars in lessons. My book, part memoir - part systems, is your way into what it cost me to learn all this. It's my life, and it's the how and why behind the things I do.

I'm not saying any of this just to sell you a book or a product. I'm saying it because I want to help. I don't want you to make the mistakes I made — I want you to learn from them instead.

— Bob Cook