What is a top notch carrier to lease a small fleet to???

if you’re going to add trucks and drivers, having your own authority is the way to go. I handle everything myself. I use a factoring service and I work with Merge Transit for back office help to sign rate cons, broker packets, take phone calls from brokers wanting check calls, but I do all the dispatching. I use TenStreet for recruiting, they have a small fleet program that’s really good. I use NASTC for drug consortium and fuel card, have my own EFS account with the fuel card. The hardest part is hiring and retaining people. This is the worst time to be hiring a driver, you can’t find a driver right now. I’m paying well above market wages and still can’t get a driver.

 

Nice to hear someone talk about how hard hiring is. TTR is full of people always talking about how if you just pay above slave wages then the driver Gods will smile upon you and be blessed with drivers galore. That a driver shortage is just something the megas talk about.

 

If you can’t succeed with landstar with a fleet, you need to stick to being a one truck trick.

 

Agreed.
I was a o/o on the 90s with my truck leased to triple crown, and I made good money and was home every night .

they were always looking for more o/o’s or Trying to get the current o/o’s to add trucks and drivers . So I bought several trucks and tried hiring drivers.

it was a nightmare.

I paid the drivers 33% of the gross to the truck, which is what most of the small fleeet owners with trucks leased on at triple crown paid their drivers

I foolishly thought that a hired driver would work as hard as I did

My wife is an account and she did the books and the hired drivers worked almost exactly 65% as hard as I did.

and the maintenance costs for the trucks went through the roof.
The Maint costs tripled.
The average Maint cost for my truck was about 8% of the gross.
The Abe Maint cost for the other trucks was about 25% of the gross.
After paying the driver and fuel and insurance and Maint and repairs , there was zero or a negative number left over every week.

I made less money but now had 10 times the headache and stress.
I’d get several years from a clutch , a hired driver would get 6-9 months ,
Etc .
It was like that with tires, brakes , etc.

If you want to start small and build up and make money without a lot of stress. You should be looking into real estate or something.
Being a landlord is slightly less of a PITA than having trucks, but you usually will make more money .