Long haul for less per mile?

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Sometimes, new O/O, need to get their mind unwrapped from per-mile company driver mentality and embrace the per-job revenue idea.

You need to know what your cost to operate is, your break-even point, and have a clear understanding of how to plan the load to make the most money, even considering learning how to possibly plan on more than one load.

The door is open to make a hell of a lot of money, but only if you stop thinking like a company driver.

 

Bam!

 

I did 3 loads last week,9 miles each,$500 each.Had to extract the loads from a refinery though,Twic card,escort in and out,but paid ok.

 

Got all 3 done in 8 hours.

 

I doesn't work like that!
It is not miles but lanes that pay this or that.
For example: Fargo, ND (area) - Baltimore, MD (area), Cleveland, OH - Chicago, Chicago - Orlando, FL. Omaha, NE - L.A. CA etc...
It also depends on the type of trailer: dry van, reefer, flatbed etc.
You need to learn what the pay potential is and then be mindful of the current market conditions - just because you got paid $5000 from Perham MN, to Hagerstown, MD back in 2021 doesn't mean you can get that rate today...I think today if they paid someone $3200, they'd take it and kiss the broker's hand.
Pay per mile is for bookkeeping arithmetic and bragging rights.
I would not think twice, if in Miami FL they offered me a 10 000 lbs dry van load to Atlanta for $800 with the next day delivery but the opposite direction would need to be at least $2000+ for this to make sense.
Some will tell you that's still cheap but on average they can't beat the spot market in the long run. You take what the sport market pays with some variations from the average but you can't expect they'll be paying you $3000 from Atlanta to Miami because that's your best offer to haul it for them. They'll find me to take it for $2200. So, you'll either take the $2200 or don't take anything at all - if you must go to Miami, idle, wait for better times that may never come. That's how it works as far as the spot market works.

 

back when I was a company driver I’d load a dry van full of high value stuff at Newark airport in NJ in the AM and it would be off the truck that evening in Columbus, OH. They must have been doing pretty good on those loads. Next day I’d load a backhaul somewhere within a 50-60 mile radius and be back in New Jersey that night. Long ### days though.

 

The first thing you need to do is know what your base expenses are before you turn a tire.

1. Truck Payment
2. Trailer Payment
3. Your base salary
4. Rent
5. Insurance
6. Cell Phone
7. Subscriptions etc

Then you need to know what your average operating expenses each month are for:

1. Tires
2. Maintenance
3. supplies
4. Motels
5. All other incidentals showers etc that are business expenses that come when operating the truck

Once you know your monthly operating cost before you turn a tire, then you need to determine about how many days you are going to work that month, say it is 22 days. You are going to add all these costs up, and then divide them by the 22 days and then times the number of days it will take to move the load, then you will figure the mileage and what your fuel cost will be (including APU or idle time), any permits if permits are required for the move, With that you get the basic number you can do the job for, then you are going to add a profit margin above this of anywhere between 10 and 80 percent.

If you are leased to a company and they get a percentage, say 10% for the sake of this discussion, you are going to simply divide the number you came up with by 90 then times 100 and that will give you the new number so the company you lease to gets their percentage.

Each month you need to be keeping a tally of the loads you have moved, and what you have been paid for, and using that total to know if you have broken even or not for the month and you should be breaking even by the 15th of the month (this is why you add that profit margin in there)

If you are not breaking even by the 15th-20th of the month and actually making money the rest of the month, you are doing it wrong because you are not making money and putting it away for a rainy day.

This is why it is better to say no to loads that don't pay, and why I will bounce 700+ miles to get to a load that pays good rather than take something cheap, you don't reward cheap freight by hauling it, if it doesn't meet your minimums, it doesn't go on the trailer.