Expanding business.

Been there done that!!!
What is the reason for adding more trucks?

 

Do you have a shipper base or will you be relying on brokered loads? You will be increasing your operating costs with higher insurance premiums and other operational costs. You will need to allow for spending much more time finding freight to keep these new people busy. It can be challenging to constantly find better paying consistent freight. Unless you keep them busy with good rates they won't stay with you. Turnover is expensive. It will involve more paperwork. You will need to make sure you are compliant with all the fmcsa rules, such as a driver qualifications file, fuel taxes, etc., You may want to put a mission statement together and company policy booklet. You need to have a lease that covers all the responsibilities of both you and the owner operators. It should be clear what you expect of them and what they should expect from you. It should include the compensation you will be paying, when they need to have paperwork in and when they will be paid.

Adding owner operators is much less capital intensive than adding more trucks and company drivers. Owner operators are usually more independent thinking than company drivers. If you get good people they can make you money, but you will need to provide the support they need to be successful.

Do you plan on providing company fuel cards? Most will likely want cash advances for fuel. Unless you have the capital to cover payroll and advances you will need to arrange for a means to finance your growth such as a line of credit, factors or quick pay from brokers.

 

Got a couple days?

Rather than try and run down everything and miss a bunch I will hit the highlights and offer up that you can email or call me with as many questions as you may have.

But first, being small you don't just need to hire the right O/O's but the perfect ones. I got so incredibly lucky with the first couple drivers. They taught me a lot about what we need to do working with O/O's. Still love my other drivers but not sure we would be where we are at now if it wasn't for the first two.

Next thing is plan for 5x more time in doing everything than what your worst case scenario is. A quick change to a policy manual that should take 15-mins will take an hour. You name it, it takes longer.

Outsource as much as you can. Even doing that you will not have enough time in the day. I started at 5:30 this morning and here it is 10 and just finishing up. And very little TTR time wasting today (I do use this forum as a mental break).

Make sure you have someone that is in the "office" full-time. I talk to a lot, and some drive for me, of drivers that come from small shops and even the most dedicated freight accounts will take your time. And nothing a driver hates more is to have to wait while you are dealing with your own issue. The better drivers (the ones you need) won't put up with it.

Better plan on having $25-$30K for each truck. You are not just providing fuel and pay but need to be able to help with financing repairs. You may pay better on the load but if a driver has to shut down because they can't afford repairs then they can make more money with wonderful big companies that rapes them at 80% or less.

Plenty more but will stop my rant for now.

And again, feel free to email me with anything you are thinking about. I'm kinda a numbers wonk and can twist things around to help evaluate the various risks.

 

I can go on for days about this I had more freight than I could move alone and started loosing customers when xyz trucking has 10 trucks ready waiting on people to call and always have a truck why do they call you xyz trucking always has a truck so I would loose that customer
I hired my first O/O not long after loosing my biggest customer I was doing $120,000 a year for just that company 3 years in a row with just one truck I paid that guy 75% of what I billed and paid him two weeks behind than every week I paid after that long before I ever got paid but I got that customer back but than that driver started doing what he wanted to do showing up late or not showing up at all than one day he didn't show up because he put his truck in the shop the AC had gone out on the way there and his AC was way more important than my load so I lost them again
I ended up with 3 O/O at one time and stoped driving because I was always trying to keep them rolling and was just living off the little money I was making than they started ######## they wanted more money than more money and people started slow paying me not long after i started loosing customers and felt like i was not in control

 

after that i went out and got my own trucks and drivers the biggest thing i learned was just because you make money with one dont mean your going to make twice that i never did now im back driving and only worry about what my truck makes just last week i fired a driver that was destroying the trucks
I only have one O/O now he makes 100% of everything and gets paid when we get paid thats the only way to keep them happy
So what would i do all over............Go buy my own trucks and trailers and find good drivers "less is more"