Landstar

At this point, I am open to any suggestions. I just know I cant keep doing what I am doing now. Being I am just one man, I believe it would be too much to take on trying to run a truck and go after my own freight dealing directly with the shippers right now but I definitely want to get out there and start handling my own things in every other aspect.

Bill, I would be interested in what you have to offer,if anything, and talking with you. I have learned some great info from your posts.Keep it up. It does help put some things in perspective.

 

Well, that was exactly my line of thinking in leasing on with his company. Not that Landstar or Mercer are bad companies but the way I saw it I had a learning curve once I got leased on with one of those outfits, at a minimum of 2 to 3 months, figuring out their system and making good money. I was just one of many thousands at either of those companies. I was truck #2 at Bill's and his wife along with their office help Missy work very hard to book loads at the best rate possible. My average rate per mile pulling a dry van is on the high side of where a single truck o/o running under his own authority would hope to be.


And we have big expectations, not unrealistic, of me being able to get a running average above $2 a mile on all driven miles to my truck next year. There has been a learning curve even here but even so my average is above what I could have hoped for in the best, luckiest possible scenario with Landstar or Mercer. I've had to adapt and change my ways of thinking. I was used to working for a big carrier based in middle tennessee (over 10 years there) who had plenty of direct contract freight going out and coming back into middle, tn. It was easy for them to get all their drivers home for weekends. I had expectations of the same thing being leased on with F2F. I never believed guys who claimed getting home weekly was possible but it meant working cheaper.


If you don't have a solid established customer base or good brokers around your home area, they are exactly right. It didn't take me long to realize that hauling mostly spot market freight. I tend to stay out 8 to 10 days now, not too much longer than what I was used to, then get my weekend as we can work a good rate closer to the house and take time off til I'm ready to roll again. We will establish ourselves over time, it may take a couple of years if that, and it will become easier for me to run the standard leave out sunday get home friday deal. That would be nice.


Bill's company is well rounded. He's just got his brokerage up and running to cover his contract freight that he himself or his o/o can't cover. He and Lauren will also be doing sales and trying to drum up more direct contract freight in my area and other points in the regions we work. It will take time but a lot of thought has gone into this and from what I've learned and seen it seems like the sky is the limit. The main thing is you most definitely need to have a good attitude and be willing to adapt. Everything else will fall right into place if you do. We're looking for smart, customer service oriented types of drivers who will help build this thing up. If you are the type who doesn't want to be bothered with recieving or making phone calls all the time and would prefer to be left alone, then this company is not for you, go try Sncheider Choice program.


The way I see things this was not simply an opportunity to make my truck profitable. It was also an opportunity to learn so much more insider stuff about the business and grow my business beyond just a truck (and that comment about growth in no way means I will ever have more than just my truck), things that are impossible to do at a company like Landstar, SNI, etc. The insights and "sound bites" you read from Bill on TTR are barely the tip of the iceberg of his vision for his and Laurens company. I don't know where this thing will be 10 years from now. I do know it's going to be fun and I am sold on his dream. I've been doing very well and have been excited working here from day one. Never had any kind of work that gave me that sort of satisfaction.


If you are a can-do person with a clean driving record and solid work history you are exactly the of trucker he's looking for. If you are a prima donna, wanna be picky and choosy about every single load, forget it. You can't be like that running spot freight and chasing good rates. Let Missy and Lauren do their job and watch how much more money you'll make because of it. You see I learned that lesson early on. If you don't know your markets you're a fool. I turned down a load I thought was beneath me and sat for a day and a half working phones myself trying to book a load, it was then I realised just how sorry the state of affairs was on rates in that part of the country - we all learned a little something from that incident - and why being picky and choosy really screwed me up.


That is not to say I am forced dispatched because I am not. I do however, know my limitations, and I am working towards eliminating them but that takes time and patience. You actually live in a great area for us rateswise, an area we like to get up to and work. Whatever you choose to do, good luck.

 

Thanks for the info

 

Well, Haven't been posting in a while but Landstar is all about you and the areas that you choose to make your 'Travel Lanes' I started out at LS and pulled a van but I treated my van as a 'LTL' carrier. I loaded a load then checked to see how much room I had left in the trailer and my route and found other loads to fill the 'empty' space in the trailer. It was a 'I wonder if I can do this' type move that worked many times over. LS is NOT for everyone as you'll see in some of my other posts. I Then moved up to pulling a stepdeck and I really cut up then because I was really able to treat that trailer as a "ltl' but here's one thing that I did that I feel not alot of people are willing to do much of..... I went everywhere! I didn't care if the load went to Canada... If it paid well and I felt that it paid well, I took it. You have to learn the system and I made very few mistakes because of the fact that I had already talked to several drivers and kinda used some common 'trucking' sense to determine what I had to do to really make money. My BIGGEST deal maker was going places that others don't care to go like the Northeast this time of year and doing things that others dread... like tarping in 80 degree heat and in 30 degree snow. You can make it at LS if you stay open minded....

I've listed quite a few different scenarios on this board concerning the things that I did to ensure my position working at LS and most worked because I was OPEN MINDED about making money. I accepted a load one time from New York but had to tarp it and had 2 stops... It was cold but the $100.00 thermal suit that I bought on a whim kept me warm enough to tarp and collect the $750.00 tarp fee that the agent offered that came straight to me. I ordered my trailer with 'can' locks, eventhough people swore they wouldn't haul cheap container freight.... but what about the $4.00 a mile cans that pop up sometimes and the broker only wants trailers equipped with can locks? I also invested alot in more equipment than I needed like enough chains to bind the White House on the trailer for those idiotic loads where the broker wanted you to have 15-20 chains and just that many binders.

I made money because I was open minded and if it made sense then I hauled it. The only thing that I can say bad about LS is the fact that sometimes you run into 'clicks' and they are hard to get into.... but then when you hear all the whiners in the trucking industry then you see why they use just those dependable guys that they've chosen. Know when to say no, and what ain't worth putting on your trailer.

For Instance, broker calls you and say that they've got a LTL load you may be interested in and it only takes up 10 foot of trailer space and it's on your way home... They then tell you that it pays $1.50 a mile but the clown fails to tell you that it weighs 37,000 pounds, so how are you gonna put anything with it to make a full load? You can't... It weighs 37,000 lbs.... so my point is to ask questions and stay outta Wyoming.... LOL...

It's all in what you make of it and just about any other company out there. Talked to several guys while I was there and heard them complaining and bashing the company and after about 10 minutes of them telling me what they weren't gonna do then I realizing why they were failing... Was everything perfect all the time? Nope, but I'd go back in a heartbeart if I didn't have something that keeps me close to home and a 18 month old daughter.

 

Great post Overdalimit. Wish I could thank you multiple times.

 

Most owner operators don't want to think "outside the box." They only want to run certain areas and restrict themselves so much that it is no wonder that they are not successful. I have always been one who was willing to follow the freight. It has paid off over the years. I used to do a lot of LTL, especially when I had a truck on the left coast. It is a little more work, but pays off in extra dividends. You have to use your head out here.

 

Great post and goes along with the belief of you have to adapt. Also reminded me of a lucrative LTL load we put together several weeks ago. Picked up what I expected to be a truckload, turned out to be four overlength skids that left about thirty feet of extra space. Called Bill's wife and got her searching for a partial pu& delivering somewhere reasonably close to my original route. Found one. Pulled it off. On the fly. That was an excitable day had a lot of fun on that one. We got lucky how everything went just right with it. A good day.

 

Now I just want to learn what it is that you guys know about this industry so I can up my knowledge and also learn more of the business end which I am extremely interested in.

 

You have to be careful when doing LTL freight. You don't want to go too far out of route or you could lose your shirt on the load. It can sometimes be a challenge to find the right partials. Other times things fall into place like clockwork.

 

It was just pure luck how that one all fell into place. I can see from that one just where and how others could unravel in a number of ways. Something that would surely happen if we were trying to piece LTL's on a daily basis. When I closed my doors at the original pickup I saw all the leftover un-used space. It's funny G-MAN cause the next thing I checked was the confirmation sheet to make sure there was no exclusive use of the trailer clause, from reading yours and others comments on that issue . There wasn't and the rest just fell in line.