What other owner operators will not tell you when you are new.

LOL...that's very civilized of you. Give them the benefit of the doubt.
We had a guy show up here in our office last winter. Just showed up unannounced. He was compiling a directory of carriers and their main customers along with target rates and terms of carriage. Really, he was. He was hired help, working by the contact.
I was his fifth call of the day and he hadn't had any luck so far. Imagine that.
I figured that God likes us better when we're kind to people with mental disabilities so I didn't back hand him and explained why I was saying no as I escorted him to his car.
He was a nice enough guy but totally without any kind of knowledge about what he was doing. I advised him to find a different line of work.

 

It would be kind of funny to fill them full of doo doo if they wernt so naieve .

 

I think the OP has left the building. He's probably made because he isn't getting much support. And here I was about to tell him all my owner operator secrets.

Here's what he should learn. There are a million ways to make a living trucking. A million ways to make it as an owner operator. A million ways to run spot market/load board freight. A million brokers to sort through. A million clues in every posting by those brokers. A million lanes that are better than other ones. And a million ways to fail at all of it.

I started 5 years or so ago. Life wasn't great, I didn't know much. My first load was for TQL. I blacklisted TQL long ago. I worked hard and paid off my truck and trailer in about a year and a half. I developed 2 customers, one went out of business and the other one's business changed.

I would go out and find more direct customers but it's not bad enough for me to quit being lazy so I usually just jump on the boards and get something quickly that fits. If not I stay home. No complaints there. It won't be like this forever.

And I'm still making a decent living, working about 3 days a week, running load board spot market freight.

And it's all my fault. Oh, and those slimy brokers that pay me.

 

There's people on here that will get mad at you if you're not willing to tell them who and what $ you're hauling for. They like to claim it will make the industry better if we do but of course we all know what the real motive there is.

 

I mentioned this before and so have others. You need to become a company driver for 5 years or more, then lease on to a company, preferably a small company where you can book your own loads and learn the business and build relationships with brokers. There are brokers that rarely if ever post on load boards that pay good rates. Drivers that solely rely on load boards, suffer when freight demand drops.

 

I settled that along time ago on the Morehouse thread when I stated " how much money I make is none of your biz ! And don't ask ! " .
But yes there are people here that think they are God's gift to trucking and freely post they're settlement statements ....I stay out of those know it all threads and have blocked those years ago that thought my business was theyres .

 

Let's expand on your posting a little. Let's say that I had a trucking outfit that was located a couple of miles from you. Since we both have been at it for years in that area, we know each other. And some of our customers overlap each other. So this guy shows up at your door asking for info, and you escorted him "nicely" to his car. You did the right thing. So now that same guy drove up the road to my place with the same goal. And I obliged because I'm a "nice guy". I gave him all my contacts and rates. How would YOU feel? Wouldn't it piss you off? Didn't I just undermine BOTH of us?

That's essentially what happens when these people go spouting off and divulging on Youtube. And then they wonder what the hell happened to their business! As someone else stated: "It's trucking 101." Or: "The info is out there for anyone to get." I agree. But you shouldn't lay it out on a silver platter for them. Let them get off their arses and do their own due diligence. Let them pay their dues and go through the rough patches like everyone else did.

 

Yeah
But like someone else posted ,
It ain’t rocket science .

All this russian chick is saying is follow the money , duh, and be as efficient as you can with the fuel expenses .

If you wanna catch some fish you gotta go where the fish are .


if you wanna make money you gotta go where the money is flowing .

Every fisherman knows you ain’t catching any fish if the fish aren’t there to catch .

if you’re in south Florida , you ain’t making any money on a load .

It’s called supply and demand .
Sometimes capitalism uses supply and demand to arrive at the value of goods and services .

this chick isn’t giving away any secrets .

Her map shows no freight in podunk nowhere Nebraska , and lots of freight in Atlanta .
Who could have ever predicted that ?

 

Okay, let's use your fish analogy. Every fisherman knows they have to catch fish to make a living. Every fisherman knows that they have to go to where the fish are to catch the fish. You, as a gifted guide and outdoors-man, discovered a nice little fly-fishing spot in a backwoods tributary. You are catching fish hand-over-fist.

Are you going to share that spot's location with other fishermen?

 

people are talking about customer lists and so on.

It takes a lot of work to build that list, many fleet owners guard it carefully and will not give it up for any reason.

It is like the sales Rolodex issue, some in sales and in other industries are valuable to a company just because of their Rolodex. I've known people who were recruited just because of that Rolodex and negotiated good salaries and packages to bring that Rolodex to the company.

Is it unethical?

Well it is but it isn't.

For me, when I was expanding by buying up distressed fleets, one of the first things after the NDA was in place was to see the books and customer lists/contracts. This was a consideration to come up with an offer to purchase because many times the company assets vs. debt load were upside down and the customer's list/contracts made the company worth more.