The Good, The Bad, The Honest Truth of a New Roehl Lease Operator

I think he might have tried and failed so he feels the need to bash everyone that wants or thinks of lease.
I myself leased at roehl, my experience didn't work out as good as preachers, but it was my decision to walk away.
I hold no bad feelings about leasing because of it.

 

This is one of the reasons for doing a lease/purchase and why my wife wanted us to do the lease. If you finance you have just jumped into the deep end and you either sink, or swim. In the case of lease/purchase you can turn the truck back in. There is a penalty, usually the equivalent of a month's lease payment. You also will have to bring the truck up to a certain standard. In my case it was spelled out in the lease agreement what would happen if at any point I turned the truck back. When it comes to business I am very cautious about ever taking an absolute stand. I find that individual circumstances are a bigger determining factor than anything else. In my case I knew I wanted to stay at Roehl for at least the 4 years of the lease and buyout. The result was that my 10 years of driving show I worked for 2 companies and 2 mistakes. Roehl alone shows 6 years of driving and each move was a move forward. The result was that I now can go wherever I want.

Payments can be brutal, but I paid off a $75,000 truck in 4 years. Some companies will starve their lease/drivers, even Roehl. In the end you have to be stubborn to make it work. There is a lot of blood, sweat and tears that go into making this work, but guess what? Any business takes blood sweat and tears.

 

Roehl let's you trip lease, meaning you CAN haul other companies freight if there's nothing in the area with Roehl you like. It's in my lease agreement. Got the binder here in the truck with me. So that l/o basher doesn't have a clue what he's talking about!

 

You need to read the restrictions on choosing freight from other companies very closely. You aren't running your own authority, plates, or even your own wagon. Roehl gets final say on that load you just found on your own. I had the same clause in my lease as well, the devil is in the details. Even though I have moved to a company that gives me almost as much freedom as having my own authority even Landstar wants exclusivity.

I still come back to the overall business model. If we had a brick and mortar store this would be a franchise and the franshisor could tell us what we could sell in our store and who our suppliers would be. The trade off is that we benefit from a national company's resources. In business one of the hardest things for a small business is to attract customers. When you have a national name and their resources behind you, your job is made a lot easier.

 

The devil is in the details. I tried to book freight outside of Roehl once because I didn't like what was being offered. I was told as long as Roehl had freight in the area I was obligated under contract to haul their freight whether I liked it or not. It's all about the authority and insurance. You may be a business owner but you are under contract.

 

That is one of the things I love about where I am, we can haul almost anyones freight, as a matter of fact we are getting a temporary increase in percentage of the load if we find our own loads till the end of January, because they know they don't have enough freight right now.

 

As of this evening Landstar had over 26,000 loads on the board, and depending on who you ask there is another 25%-40% available directly through agents. Today alone I turned down 4 loads. I think part of the problem for these agents is that so many of us are going home for a long weekend and they are getting stuck with loads. If you are willing to work through Thanksgiving there is a lot of freight available.

 

I just got a letter from Jeff asking me to come back and telling me that if things don't work out they would like me to come back. I guess the entire company doesn't feel the same as John and Marg.

 

You actually got a letter from Jeff??? Wow...verrrrry interesting.

 

The letter was from Jeff and it said the review board had already voted yes to allow me to come back, asked me to consider coming back and said if things didn't work out to keep them in mind.