Cheap haulers put my friend out of business

I can stay at home and go broke, takes longer that way than running for nothing. I want to make money on every load. Making money is the reason we do this, right? I f I wanted to just make wages I would sit in someone else's truck.

 

I think that an OO with 1 truck has a different set of criteria to be profitable than someone with a small fleet or a large fleet does. More trucks can average out the rates and earn a smaller profit margin and still make an acceptable profit. An OO pretty much lives or dies from what he is doing daily. But cutting costs and working smarter is always a plus.

 

Always someone willing to HAUL for LESS until thery end up with LESS than they started out with then

 

The mega carriers have loads of debt. Go to yahoo finance and check out the publicly traded transportation companies debt ratio. When prices reach $5/gal. They will layoff more company drivers and look for more independents to cut their benefits cost. Also, look for more lease purchase gimmicks, also cuts costs for them.

 

Everybody's buisness plan is not the same.
In my case, I have a minimum profit margin that I will not operate below. So every load I haul, I know I will make $$$. And not included in that minimum, I do about 80% of my maintenance, save every drop of fuel I can. I have 3 trailers, 1 tractor, and I do the driving. I do not have any payments. I want and go for every cpm I can get. Now on the other hand, someone who has truck and trailer payments, and higher insurance premiums, can't operate on the same profit margin as I. Am I wrong for for hauling for less, simply because he can't?

 

Southwest airlines did the same thing a few years ago. The low contract price eventually runs out. Then they had to raise ticket prices. Main thing is stay out of debt.
When fuel gets to high. Get some buddies together. Open up a truck driving school and claim theres a driver shortage.Charge $5000 tuition. Always a way to profit from your knowledge.

 

I sure wouldn't expect to take cheap rates just because I was out of debt. I would want to make even more money. Time to invest that extra money that was going into a house. Storage units or any other kind of smart investment. You did it the right way, congratulations!!

 

My motto was always, "Turn the key to the right only when the rate is right".

I've also told customers that said my rates were to high that I was here to make a dollar, I've already got friends.

 

lol that's funny

 

You are absolutely correct... their is no money in hauling freight, they make it in services aka lease purchase, running L/O @ .90 a mile. But when they run out of guys stupid enough to operate for less then cost... then when are they going to do ?

I know they can borrow against their equity, but at some point they can no longer borrow from Peter to pay Paul. They have office personal that they have to have to stay in operation, the bigger the company, the more personal.... As a single truck operation, we have the option to minimize our overhead unlike your bigger companies.

I think the companies with 100 to 500 trucks will be / are hurting the most because they have the overhead but lack the major buying power like your mega carriers like JB, Swift, ect...