Any Landstar BCO's on here?

I will jump in here with a few of those questions. We been here for about 7 years.

Hubby takes off lots of time, it all depends on what your monthly bills are. He takes off sometimes
two weeks a month.

As I said how much time off depends on how much money you want to make and need to make, only
you can answer that questions. If you want to give me a quote of your montly bills I can give
you an idea.

Yes we struggle to find good freight, we are just working on how low we can go today. There is a
lot of frt out there for 1.47 and under, and you don't make much at that. Our cut off is about 1.50 right now. that is if we get a good load going one way, we can take a cheap the other.

There is no dedicated frt, it comes and goes so much. We've been here like I said for 7 years, and no
frt lasts long. Something is always changing. You get areas that you can get freight out of, but it's not like you haul for agent A every week, at least it's not for us. We have like five contacts at our home, and most of the time one of them can get us a load going to Texas, but then it's a battle of whits to get out of there...

Someone might have a different take, but that's mine.

Jacks

 

I'm a Landstar Agent and an EX-Truck Driver. I've been with Landstar almost 6 years. I would be happy to answer any of your questions to the best of my ability and as honestly as I can.

 

Only you can answer your own question about home time. The #1 rule I hear from all my Regulars (Landstar O/O who work with me a lot) is to know what you have to make per mile in order to survive and to pay your bills. Yes, it is a struggle to find good paying loads. I will never lie to you -with the economy they way it is, and the fact that Landstar, just like everybody else, has lost a lot of good paying customers. Therefore, there are a lot of Agents going to the load boards, then posting the loads on the Landstar load board. That's part of the reason you see a lot of really cheap freight on the Landstar Load Board lately. If you sign on with Landstar, you will soon learn there's good Agents and there's bad Agents. Keep a little phone book or something with the good Agent's phone numbers and Agency codes, and call those Agents on a regular basis. Always ask that Agent about the Fuel Surcharge! If the Agent tells you the Customer only pays like 20 CPM FSC - that's a load of crap! A good Agent who cares about you O/O will back out the full FSC allowed by Landstar so that YOU get the money, and Landstar can't take a percentage of it. There are codes for Layover and Detention time. If you have to deal with eigher of these, make sure the Agent codes it "DET5" so that YOU get it 100%. A lot of Agents don't like to tell you this stuff because it cuts into their commission. Some of them tend to forget that YOU are the one doing all the work. As to getting hired on - It's my understanding that about 30% of the applicants get hired on, and it takes anywhere from 2-4 weeks. A lot of O/O don't make it very long at Landstar any more because of Landstar's policies in regards to logbook violations, so I hope you are really good at running a legal logbook. Another good rule the O/O tell me is to make sure you can get a load coming out of your destination before you even think about booking a load going into that area, unless you live there and just want to go home. If there are dedicated runs at Landstar, I don't know about them. If so, they must be very few and far between. It's best if you have someone who can work the Loadboard for you and book loads for you while you're on the road. Most of the O/O I work with always try to keep themselves booked up a week in advance and hope none of the loads fall thru! They say if you constantly keep studying the loadboard, you can have a lot better luck making money and keeping yourself busy. Hope this helps!

 

You can get with an agent who has dedicated freight such as VAL who does tons of fedex term to term runs and conway freight. I like to consider myself kinda dedicated as i will run only for certain agents who know me and not have to look at the board so much..... And i know what and when those agents have certain loads and i get them before they hit the board. Youve gotta form some relationships and show agents you can cover their freight.....

 

I,m interested in Landstar. 15 years or so ago I was an agent for Inway actually out of the Eugene Or office. Now I own a truck again and Landstar is a real choice. I would appreciate any info you could share

 

What are Reefer rates like in this economy with Landstar?

 

I dont see alot of reefer freight...Im looking at load board now... Rates from West to East are about $2.35 and up.......If you have reefer Im sure there are guys here who work specifically with a few agents with a reefer, I know i would!!

 

Reefer freight is a niche that is very low key, very few agents dealing with it due to the risk involved, especially produce.

 

I have a bit of a differing take on this. We live in Texas. We choose to stay out for a couple of months at a time. Freight out of Texas is good just depends on where in Texas you end up, who you know and how yo like to haul.

For us if there is not a trip out of Dallas to either California or New Jersey that pays 2.00 a mile or more at 30,000 pounds or less then we will haul something to a hot spot, ie... Ok, In, Oh. The freight is out there, the trick is using the tools LS provides, ie lane matches, and do alot of calling.

Personally, for us, once we are in our "zone" we haul from Ca to the east coast at 2.43/mile and then from Jersey to Ca @ 1.95. These trips are always there.

As for your question about Hometime. We take off when we want, for as long as we can afford. LS is a great company to pull for. The one thing I have seen is thAt YOU have to be proactive with your BUSINESS.

 

I'm curious, is the $1.47 your posted before the 65% is factored and FSC is added back on? If so this sounds like typical pay from the so called megahaulers ie. Swift,Crete,etc. Or is is the final amount per mile? Not bad, not great, better than I'm getting at Swift now. Truck is paid off, why not get paid a little more for the same exact kind of work.