New Authority? Should I do it? Consider.

Start with cash, not borrowing money to get a truck helps.
Hard to start when your broke.

 

I've been on both sides, leased on now, my own mc prior.

Mc was much more work, but you keep every penny. If you are the type that gets a chub during tax season thinking about a schedule c, your own authority is the way to go.

Me, I prefer to do as little paperwork as I can.

So I leased onto a company that does the boring crap, and I negotiate my own loads. It's the best of both worlds, and I am not even considering getting my own mc again. Too much hastle and paperwork. Too much dot compliance crap.

 

That’s a good point about factoring and that DAT is largely based on those carriers rates.

In my little brokerage it used to be that around 75% of carriers factored which always was surprisingly high to me. Last week as I’m signing a bunch of checks to go out, I realized that only 3 checks were to actual carriers, and the rest to factors. That was on at least 30 checks if not more. So, looks like we’re up to around 90% or more not running on their own money.

We had one company fairly recent that just completely disappeared. Never sent invoices, can’t get ahold of them, nothing. Gone. Needless to say profit margins on those 3 or 4 loads they hauled was pretty good!

 

People living check to check. Sad. Especially at $200,000 a year.

 

That’s a great point

 

What's the average charge to lease on to a carrier when you bring your own trailer?

 

I've seen ranges from 5 to 25 percent if bringing your own trailer but 10 percent seems the most common.

 

Make sure you lease on to one that is an actual carrier with it’s own loads and customers / contracts. Those don’t charge less than 20-25%. For 10-15 % you lease on to a spot market carrier which is worthless in itself, you can do it yourself and don’t need them at all.