1 Truck, 2 or 3 Drivers, What do you think?

Wooooh that is tough bro. Seems like you are a good person.
My advise will be. if you don’t know anything about trucking , then don’t go that route. It is bad timing now.
Think something that you know you can do , so you don’t have to depend on someone else.
Wish you the best bro.

 

No just no. If you dont drive youd never be successful. Do you have any idea what it cost to own and operate a truck. Let alone hiring someone even if they are family to drive it for you. The profit margins aren't there for a lot of small o/ops. Who've been doing it for years. What about mechanical work who will do it. Do you know what to look for buying a truck? Its just a bad idea.

 

I dont think its a good idea for you. I could give a lot of reasons but the largest is that you have no experience. People with a lifetime in this business are going belly up right now and youd probably do the same in short order. And then thered be the family resentment when its time to analyze where things went wrong.

The only thing i could MAYBE support for you would be the firesale purchase of a turnkey trucking company with equipment, drivers, mechanic, office manager/dispatch AND ESPECIALLY dedicated freight. But if you had that kinda money you could probably find a much better place for it to keep your minions busy.

 

Right now trucks cost more than freight pays.

 

DON’T DO IT!

Your brother is old enough to be a Grandpa, surely he can make it on his own. He’s just a victim and a complainer, more hand holding won’t help him at all.

I started a company with my brother so you know. After 4 yrs I ended up buying him out. Now 8 yrs later we are just now starting to talk again. He’s a lot like your brother btw. The whole thing was my idea and I could have done it on my own. But my older brother by 5 yrs I thought would have a great opportunity and something to be proud of.

Long story short, I admire your big heart, but save your heart ache, time, and MONEY.

He ended up blowing over 200k and is worse off then he was before. While it cost me a ton and I lost my best friend for pretty much a decade if not forever.

 

Watch on a TV show in few months"How I lost my sons and brother".
To be serious, the only way to make it work is:
The person who will be managing the business has to be an o/o himself for at least a year and make good profit.
Then you get another truck and a driver.
It's a common thought for people that to make money in trucking, is just buying a truck and get going. Its very very far away from truth

 

I don't mean any disrespect but that statement applies to just about any business out there. That they cost slightly less to operate than they bring in. However with trucking its different insurance can cost thousands a month for a new company with one truck. That truck may sit for 2 or 3 days waiting on a load. If you buy a new truck sitting is not an option. A new truck cost 135 grand and up. Brand specs and payment method all makes a difference in this. If you buy "slightly used" a 3 or 4 year old truck with 300 thousand miles on it. You may be in trouble because it may have been very abused when it was new by a company that trains new drivers. If you do buy a truck like that figure out what it would cost to have an inframe done for that truck and a transmission rebuild or replacement. Add that to what you think it would cost to buy it and have those funds available so when something happens you have the money on hand to fix it.

 

And all three of them over to Roehl doing the 7/4 7/3 hometime program. The three of them can tag team in and out of two trucks and keep working, it's steady part time work, and the pay isn't actually all that shabby. And the carrier covers all the costs as well as paying the drivers. Saves you the expense of running a couple of trucks, and keeps your people somewhere safe where someone else will be keeping an eye on them.

I'm not a fan of Roehl for personal reasons, but I will say they are pretty serious about safety standards. And they are also serious about maintenance, especially at the Gary, IN terminal (which isn't actually all that far from you.)

The 7/4 7/3 program was very well run and organized when I was on it. Run like Jesus for seven days, take four off. Run hard again for seven days, take three off. Actually, seven days generally means six and a half, but you get the full (midnight to midnight) three or four days completely off.

Honestly, it seemed to me that the "Hometime" fleets were better run than the national fleet.