Storman, our big sign out front says "Free Truck with Move In"

So just about everyone who calls or stops by, the first thing they ask about is the free truck. It's hard to determine how many would call or stop by if our sign didn't say that. But I do know that many callers say they drove by, saw the sign, and wrote down our number.

And there's not a good method of determining how many see the truck while it's in use around town and then contact us.

What we do with the truck is you can use it to move in, it's $14.00 for insurance and the first 25 miles are free. If you go over 25 miles, then it's $.89 mile.

If a customer wants to rent it to move out, it's $29.95 per day, $.89 mile, and $14.00 insurance. It could pay for itself and actually turn a profit if we ran a real tight schedule on it...for example telling customer they could only have it for 4 or 6 hours and renting it several times a day, but usually we do one rental per day. No use in stressing ourselves and the customers.

We rent the truck about 20 times a month to new move-in's. I don't know how many of them would move in without the free truck, but it definitely is an attention getter. Also, if all prices are close to the same between you and your competitors, the free truck will definitely tip the balance. It even tips the balance when you are higher priced if the customer is tired or stressed and doesn't feel like running around town trying to find a truck.

Many times when a customer needs to move or put things in storage, they are more focused on what they have to do next (gotta get a truck, gotta get a truck)....once they have that problem taken care of, then they can focus on the next one (gotta get storage, gotta get storage).

So like I said, I think it's definitely worthwhile, but then again, I would also take into account what your competition is doing, and other location factors such as "are you in a rural area where most everyone has pick up trucks?" if so, then a storage rental truck may not be as much in demand.