Seeking Guidance As A New O/O With A Lease . .

FIXED. thank you.

 

If you go all in and buy a new truck, the first thing you're going to want to do is save every dime you make for the near future. You won't have to pay for repairs, but you still have maintenance, and down time for covered repairs. On the new trucks building to $20k would be my first priority, and then slowly building to 30-40k over the next few years, so by the time that warranty is out in the 4th year, you can cover a repair or trade in and be in a good situation. This will allow you to make those truck payments should you injure yourself which is always a possibility out here.

You should also have private savings as well and enroll in a tax deferred IRA. This will lower your tax responsibility and allow you to save for retirement as well. A financial advisor that knows trucking might be the way to go. You have until next year to fund the account so build your break down fund first.

BCO biz manager is Fogline's software just for Landstar BCO's. They give a free 30 day trial, so set it up while your at orientation and try it out. I think it's great and it will tell you your profit per load, which can easily show you what is profitable and what's not.

As far as the load board, the best loads never hit it, at all. Networking with agents is the key to riches here. 70% of my freight never hits the board. I get a phone call or text to see if I am available. The rest of my freight comes from the board, but typically is booked through a load alert. For a new BCO, load alerts are going to be your most valuable tool. I prefer the email version because I set broad parameters to try and find awesome paying loads. Setting parameters such as 2.20 a mile will mean you miss out on that $2 single pallet LTL. If a load is good, it will be gone in minutes. If a load is fantastic, it will be gone to the first caller. The stuff you see on the load board that's old is typically the stuff no one wants. You need to change your way of thinking as well. The typical company driver or LP wants miles, miles, miles. All you want is revenue for the least amount of miles. If you grab a weekend load paying $2000, do you grab the one going 400 miles or the one going 800 miles? In most cases the 400 mile one is better though you'll be sitting more. Sometimes the 800 mile one is better though because it puts you an area with awesome freight and the 400 mile one put you in a dead area. The best thing I can tell you is study the load board for different areas you might want to run, make note of the agents that have good freight posting, etc.
Good luck.

 

Landstar operation is out of my wattage reach. Your best bet is becoming friends with any and all, good and bad and learn the short and the long wanna-run drivers from there.
Learn in events of breakdown procedures, learn money dealings with your settlements "before" leaving the yard.

Get to your bottom line and for whatever happens try hard never to load below that soothing point.
My break even including home expenses is $1.71 a mile.
my loads are hardly ever below $1.90.

If you need help getting to that number just add up every single bill, get an annual lumpsum, of them all and divide by the industry's avg mileage run of 120000.
I've come to realize through time most of us only work 40 weeks out of 52, but we all work in different ways.
in example, 120000/40 weeks you have to run no less than 3000 miles a week. Capece?
I run way less than those miles epicted in that description but my income is higher than that set on there also.
then my truck gives me 1 mpg more than my avg for the 1.71, meaning I am keeping afloat comfortably.

Good luck driver.

 

If you are going with LS I would find some of the groups that report the bad brokers. Even some of the biggest kool-aid drinkers are starting to publicly complain about this.

And if you can find a mentor BCO that would be just as important. Even great companies have issues. The quicker you can learn how to work the system and avoid the pit falls the better. Couple good LS threads on TTR. I am sure you can get some people there to help you out.

 

Good luck and remember, your business starts with your numbers keep up. And most but not least "have a goal".

 

Quality leasing: make sure you are not limited on where you can take the truck. In the past you had to get truck moves to a different company approved by them.

Mercer has been growing their van side per a driver I chatted with last month. They are worth a close look.

 

I think you can sign a conestoga on with them which will mean no tarpping, but also no oversize loads. Check out the Mercer threads for any questions you have. They have been answered, and they have 700 page thread too.