Talk about a touring company -
By Advance Business Capital

Is this a great idea for a sitcom or what? Two sisters work for an Indiana company that provides displays and exhibits for trade shows across the US. Their job is to manage transportation, because all these fold-out stages and booths, etc. have to be trucked to Chicago or Miami or wherever.

Now in the sitcom, the women—let’s call them “Jenny and Megan”—are so good at their work that a local lender offers to fund them in their own trucking company. So in the middle of the worst trucking downturn since the Great Depression, the two quit their long-time jobs and go into the female-friendly, low-risk trucking business.

Sold yet? I see the set as like Taxi, a drab, un-frilly place where colorful drivers drop in and out. The sister-owners are married women with kids, so the stars should be early middle-age: maybe Minnie Driver as the wisecracking, smart one and Lisa Kudrow as the warm, ditsy one. Roseanne Barr can make occasional guest appearances as their Harley-riding mom, a dealer in Las Vegas.

Okay, enough fun. Jenny Kehrer and Megan Bissmeyer aren’t a sitcom and I don’t know if they’re wisecracking or ditsy, but they’re probably both pretty smart or they wouldn’t have gotten the money to start their own company: RFS (Rapid Freight Solutions). They’re also more than a little gutsy to leave their jobs of fourteen years at Performance Marketing Group.

Their new company is based in Carmel, Indiana and in 2009 they had ten tractors, with fifteen planned for 2010 (and fifty by 2011). The RFS trucks are splashed with a cool swooshy logo and a bold red & black color scheme you might see on Tim McGraw’s tour bus.

So Megan and Jenny have style, but they’ve also got business smarts. Says COO Jenny, “We were able to establish the infrastructure of our company for a fraction of the cost we might have in years past through the selective purchase of our equipment.” CEO Megan adds, “When you see a RFS truck rolling down the highway or backing into a dock, we want you to see clean and dependable equipment and friendly, courteous drivers who pride themselves with on-time performance.”

The RFS fleet will provide dry vans, open car haulers, tankers and flatbeds on local, regional and national levels, including truckload, less-than-truckload, dedicated freight, tradeshows & exhibits, expedited freight and intermodal container drayage. “Despite the recent downturn in the economy,” says Megan, “Jenny and I are eager for the challenges ahead. It won’t be easy but we’re confident we have the right people and resources for success.”

All right, Jenny and Megan don’t sound like a sisters sitcom anymore. They sound like a real business, which is good since this is an economy without a laugh track. We give the ladies two thumbs up and good luck on the long road ahead.

This story was drawn from articles in the Indiana Business Journal and Inside Indiana Business

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