Landstar

There is an easy way to find the freight that never makes it to the board. Hint: It has nothing to do with talking to agents.

 

If we are getting a fuel surcharge of .49 cents a mile then it is at a rate of 100%

 

I could not believe he had a truck note that high either. But it was a brand new truck, had about 60,000 miles on it. I know that when my wife started at LS she an advantage. One of her friends helped her and she did more research looking at his load board. We do pretty well ourselves. and next year we are going to be purchasing our own trailer.

 

I figured that he had a new truck with such a high payment. My guess is that he probably had very little experience when he started with Landstar. With that much of a payment he probably didn't pay much down, either. So many people fail in this business by purchasing more truck than they can afford. Back when I first leased to Landstar they preferred to lease to people who didn't have a truck payment of over $1,200/month. I have a friend who was leased to Landstar at the same time as me who had a payment of $2,300/month. He had a high interest rate. He still made money with Landstar, but he kept the roads hot. While he had that truck and was leased to Landstar he didn't see home much. He had run his authority and found out how to run their system. He found a few agents that he could run for good rates and he just kept the wheels turning.

I have known a number of BCO's who start and later buy a trailer. Having a trailer can be a drawback if you do a lot of drop and hook. I know a guy who is leased to them now and has his own van. He has found a niche' and rarely hauls anything heavy. That seems to be how some do well with Landstar. They find a small group of agents or a niche' where they can do what others may not want to do or can't.

I don't think that everyone who wants to become an owner operator should lease to Landstar. Unless you are very proactive you won't likely do well with them. You can't just sit around and wait for the phone to ring. It is much easier today than when I leased to Landstar. We did have a pager but cell phones were not around like today. If we received a page then we had to scramble to find a pay phone. I would think that it would be much easier today.

 

Landstar agents do double broker freight. and i dont know what fool would think they dont. ITS, LBC they MCC, they all do.

 

A lot of people get hung up on semantics. If two people are taking a broker's commission out of a load, it is double brokered. Don't matter if you call 'em agents, associates, smurfs, etc.. If it's not double brokering, then Landstar should have no problem leaving the agents commission in for the truck and paying the agent a salary out of their share.

 

Those 3 keep calling us to see if we want to take a load for them. One would think they would get a clue when you have turned them down 10 times or more

 

Bingo! It's just math, people. Use your calculator, remember that every load has to have a decent load at the end of it - if it doesn't, don't take it - and you'll do fine.

That's the ticket right there. We're leased to Landstar, my wife stays home and does the load board/booking/paperwork, I run the loads on a 48' flat. We stay in the Midwest because that part of America still makes "stuff", therefore they have freight to haul. Not all loads pay well, and some go to places you can't get out of, so we don't go there. I like those tarped loads because they pay $100 or better, and if I tarp every day for a week that's a $500 pay raise. If there's no fuel surcharge we don't haul it. Find good brokers/agents, work with them as much as possible, and avoid the rest like the plague. We even keep a file of agents we refuse to do business with.

I go home every weekend, and I've stayed home for obscene lengths of time because we've done well. Yes, 2009 was rough, but we stuck to our guns on price because we knew to the penny what our breakeven point was, and never once hauled anything lower than that. It's not personal, it's just business.

 

Extremely interesting, helpful and informative! The hubs just got his paperwork today and has his 1st appointment with them tomorrow! We'll see what happens from there......will post as we go along, but be nice! This is my 1st post!

 

Welcome to the forum, MommaB. What do you mean? Did he get his paperwork for his authority or to lease to a carrier?