Adding trucks...

Ok ok, you win the game of worst drivers haha.

 

How profitable are you with one truck?

I know you didn’t want to get into the money part but you also said is it worth a couple extra grand at the end of the year. Obviously after paying the driver, if it’s only a couple grand earning then heck no. lol.

To me running multiple trucks is definitely worth it. I’m running 8 to 10 depending on how many drivers I have, but also have a brokerage.

I think only you know whether it’s worth it. I could give you more bad stories but the good stories are plentiful too.

 

Numbers are numbers- whether someone can make them work or not is really up to the individual.
Painting with a broad brush: whether to expand really depends on what you want to spend your time doing.
Do you want more truck time or more office time, and what do you want to have in 20/30 years.

 

I know this is a couple months old but:

in the mid 90s I had one truck, paid for, leased on with a company that had no company drivers and plenty of their own trailers and plenty of freight.
I was making good money, usually clearing $1,500 a week or more after fuel insurance maintainance & repairs etc
Home every night , off every weekend.

company is begging for more O/Os or current o/o to add trucks and drivers.

I ran across a couple of good trucks for a good price, under $10k each , and started hunting drivers.
First problem was I advertised and got lots of interest and Schedule interviews on a Saturday , had 9 interviews so I set them an hour apart.
One of the nine shows up.
And he had a felony conviction for armed robbery.

I finally hire two drivers and get some money coming in,
One is a good worker and ocd and adhd , his truck and paperwork was always perfect.
Other guy would randomly not show up for work and not bother to call dispatch to tell them he wasn’t working .

I wound up losing several thousand before I stopped the bleeding and sold the trucks.
The OCD guy was going to buy his own truck , so I just sold him the one he was driving.

my wife is an accountant and she did the books and the math,
Here’s the reason you can’t make money with hired drivers and the mistake I made:

you think hired drivers will work as hard as you and take care of the truck like you do.
Not gonna happen. Not now, not ever.
You might find one guy out of a hundred drivers that will work as hard as you and not destroy your truck one part at a time , but if they have that work ethic , they will also already have their own truck or a good job with a good company .

Mathematically, my drivers worked 65% as hard as I did, and the maintainance costs went out of sight.
I’d get years from a clutch and a hired driver might get none or ten months from a clutch.
Same with tires, U-joints , etc etc .
I got lucky I guess, only lost about $10-12k over a year, but it was a lot lot lot of stress.
It was ten times the stress and I actually made less money.

unless you can go from one truck to 15 or 20 very quickly, you’re going to have a real hard slog.

 

How did you pay your drivers? Do you think it might have worked out differently if they were on percentage pay?

 

I would rather just lease or rent equipment out than hire somebody to drive for me as a company driver. Too much risk. One bad driver can destroy even a 100 truck fleet. Collapse a bridge, hit a school bus full of kids, anything could happen out there.

I personally would hold onto my assets. Use my truck as collateral for a new one instead of trading it in, then rent it out to another driver running his own business or leased onto a carrier that isn't mine. He (or his insurance) will be liable for damages and he can ruin his own CSA score if he wants to and will have no affect on me.

 

That’s assuming they keep it insured if it gets wrecked. But what about the guy that just beats it to hell?

 

I bet they were on percentage pay. I’ll go out on a limb and say I almost guarantee it.

 

Adding trucks...think long and hard about it. Write out the pros and cons, talk to anybody you can about the reality of running multiple trucks, do as much research as you possibly can, vet your potential driver candidates as best as you can, just don't dive in thinking the water is warm, expect headaches, phone calls, and drama, along with the seldom good times. If there's enough money in it and you can afford to have a driver manager I highly recommend it, someone to handle all of those calls and drama, you just become a bean counter, which needs much attention anyway.