So you want to "own " your own company

Small business is who really runs the country. And small businesses look at things like elections to determine wether or not they spend their capitol to increase their market share, or if they hold off until they think the economy will improve. Depending on what happens in November, they could very well decide to hold off. If the majority of small businesses decide to hold off, I think we will likely see the economy dip towards another recession. If that proves to be the case, I would not want to be strapped to a bunch of debt will little to no experience in this or any other industry. Business is more than a gamble, it also takes a certain amount of calculated risk. Now, if southerndude has cash money and wants to jump in, by all means go for it, if hes willing to take a chance. But I would not take on any debt at this time.

 

I am curious on how depressed of rates you were looking at, as well as miles and loaded to emtpy percentages. Now I also realize that you can take two businesses, have them doing that exact same things, and depending on debt, one could fail and the other thrive.

 

Haul rates as low as 1.40, weekly miles down to 1800 miles.

I never separated dh to loaded because it was all inclusive.

I do not run a normal business model like you either.

You'd have to read a couple of the posts I have linked back to recently and the spreadsheet I post.

I am on my phone otherwise I'd show that now.

 

Just for the sake of discussion, not argument, if $1.40 turns out to be the once in a while exception or great rate. Could you make it (according to your business model) with freight rates that would normally average around $1.20? Not necessarily for anything long term, but short term, say one to two months? As far as business model's, I'm not really sure that there is anything that could be considered normal. I think there are as many variations as there are opinions.

 

This is the comments I was talking about.

I honestly don't look at it as all costs against a certain number of miles. To me, I just can't understand why guys do that to themselves.

I look to make X amount of revenue each month and cut my miles to a minimum. Once I meet the revenue to cover expenses, (Including a living wage for me) and those variable expenses are paid and the profit I want is made for the month, I park it and enjoy time with my family.

If things are REALLY hoping, I will continue to run so that when things go to hell and rates tank, then I can sit at home and do what I WANT to do, instead of what I HAVE to do.

So what I HAVE to earn is $5300 per month + 77 CPM for fuel and maintenance.

So yeah, I can actually haul some of those cheap ### loads we complain about just to move me to a better market, but that actually defeats my own business model in the first place.

$5300 / the 19 days I allow myself to be out each month is about $278 daily revenue I HAVE to cover. Otherwise, that's my minimum daily expenses. If I don't move the truck, it's $278 out of my pocket. Historical records show I cover about 550 miles on the daily average. So that's what I use to figure that out. I sometimes will fudge that up to 600 when I have been doing some really longer hauls over 1300 miles.

If I can get $650 and it's 300 miles, that's 5 hours of work. or about $140 of my daily revenue covered. I only needed $231 for maintenance and fuel to move the load, that leaves me with $280 that I can call profit off that load. I can use that (and often do) to put towards my Overheads until they are totally covered for the month. Once that $5300 is covered (and the fuel/maintenance expenses), I can take my happy hide home for some well deserved family time. This month, I did that in 14 days in September.

But the fewer miles I have to move a load, it's to my greater benefit. There are times I have been able to use that model and show that taking a load from Minneapolis to Seattle with the right backhauls, (Just did it in September) I can take myself off the road that much sooner and spend extra time at home with the family.

I still had $14,000 revenue for the month, but I also cut my fuel expenses back almost $1500.

having spent an additional $1000 on fixing an exhaust manifold gasket that was leaking, I am already showing a 3/4 to 1 MPG improvement in my fuel mileage. That repair alone will pay for itself in the month of October if this weeks trip numbers hold out. Already I have moved the truck from a 5.8-6 to 6.8-7 at 78-80K gross.

 

MNdriver, not trying to tell you how to run your truck but I think it's important to keep track of "loaded only" and "deadhead" miles separately. It allows you to track trends over quarters and years, which is especially helpful in niche segments. I can already spot from second quarter to third my deadhead is 23% and %30 percent respectively. Cpm to the truck down 12 cents a mile. Loaded miles only rate down 40 cents. This information over time will help me. In the here and now all I know is freight needs to get busier so my deadhead goes back down. Cause there's really no other way the way I operate. Anyways, all a person has to do is write down beginning odometer at the shipper on every trip then ending one at consignee. That's all you need to track all of that. Use a spreadsheet or the old fashioned notebook with a pen.

 

I keep track of DH and loaded miles for other reasons. Not for expenses. And yes, I do lightly follow my DH %.

I could careless how far I have to bounce to get a load. It is still a part of the rate. Someone has to pay for it. And it's not coming out of my pocket.

Yes, I want my DH% as low as possible. Every chance I get, I try to load on the same dock I unload at. My longest DH to date has been from Chattanooga TN to Lebanon TN. That was Sep 7th and got me home for a wedding(extenuating circumstances). Otherwise, most of my deadheads are under 40 miles with a rare one under 100.

 

One other thing it helps me with is building a week off of great paying loads from contacts who give it to me and picking off other freight from loadboards. Ideally all of my freight would come from networking, stuff that never see's a loadboard as it was in 2nd Q.. Now things are much slower and I'm having to pick other loads off the boards. Of my previous9 loads 4 came from established relationships, 4 were picked from CHR, and 1 off ITS. It's very important to me to know my deadhead on every load, difficult for me to get across why, it just is. When my regular freight is slow I have found I am able to deadhead much further than typical 50-100 miles to pick off spot loads that are ideal in the time spent and keeping me in my lanes for the good stuff. The good stuff at times covers deadhead on the "bad".This means my loaded rate on that stuff is cheap $2.60 a mile to the truck, and I hate that, but it works. I can spot any of a number of prospective loads on CHR or ITS based on limited info, figure my minimum on any given one then realize quickly if it is likely or not, and go from there. I have several contacts after delivering one of these that can sometimes put high dollar stuff on. Again, this is difficult to explain but it's my system and works. Keeping very close tabs on deadhead is important part of it. Limiting myself to loads within 50 or 100 miles did not work.

 

I don't do expedited freight either. It is not in my demeanor to do it. While it may pay you $2.60 a mile, I can find other stuff that pays similar and I don't have to fend phone calls at 2 or 3 AM to have something across the state by noon.

I am sure that BBB has shared with you the rates I am seeing and hauling for.

I have been home now for the last 10 days because of repairs on the truck and because I had made my revenue for the month. Family time is not worth $2.30 or even $10 per mile to give it up for me. Never has and never will be.


My DH is tracked so I can see where the markets are that will allow me the lowest out-of-pocket expenses. Brokers don't care to hear how far you have to go to pick up a load.

 

The $2.60 a mile stuff was 800 miles of general freight off loadbaords before F2F's cut came out - very cheap freight. You won't do that conssitently off load boards without a plan. My point was when the good paying stuff is slow, that stuff is there to pick off and work myself back to the good stuff. Here was a 6 day stretch of work for me:

$5,865.00 gross revenue to my truck
$2.063 per mile to my truck
2,842 total miles driven
1,871 loaded miles only
971 deadhead miles
34% deadhead as a percentage of total miles
$3.134 loaded miles only rate to the truck (1,871 loaded miles)
9 number of loads hauled
315 average length of haul (including deadhead)

Here were how the loads broke down rate is "to my truck"

1) $1,472 on 527 loaded miles 0 deadhead (from my contacts)
2) $460 on 128 loaded miles 115 deadhead (general freight ITS)
3) $552 on 115 loaded miles 158 deadhead miles (from my contacts)
4) $506 on 264 loaded miles 116 deadhead miles (general freight CHR)
5) $598 on 113 loaded miles 86 deadhead miles (from my contacts)
6) $460 on 221 loaded miles 25 deadhead miles (general freight CHR)
7) $299 on 30 loaded miles 58 deadhead miles (general freight CHR)
8) $828 on 170 loaded miles 268 deadhead miles (from my contacts)
9) $690 on 303 loaded miles 143 deadhead miles (general freight CHR)


The point I was trying to make is when my freight is slow and I can't do it on every load I can still pick off decent freight from loadboards. The good freight even allows me the leeway to deadhead much farther than the "thinking inside the box mindset" of less than 100 or 50 miles deadhead only. This is a slow week and bad numbers for me. But with 34% deadhead and staying in my lanes it's really not too bad for what it is.

As far as expedite "not allowing for one to have a life". There's no-one at F2F who spends as much time at home as I do. I can pick off one of these loads like the first one by sitting in the lazy boy then build around that and pick off others as they come up in my areas depending on where I'm at. Also you'd be surprised how much of that freight moves during the daytime at rates like that. I got a call at 5am this past friday morning on load number 8, you would not climb out of bed to do that? Mike had just delivered a load the night before about 5 miles away from that location and did the same exact load, I had to deadhead over 140 miles to get it. He ended up getting a $3 a mile load that got him thru the house for the weekend. I passed on two 800 mile Texas loads paying $2500 gross, then I went and got the $690 load and went home. Mike and I were laughing how Landstar posted those $2500 loads about an hour after we heard about them from the true source, not Landstar, for $1900..

Just trying to get across here it's difficult to make it off loadboards only with no contacts who can feed you steady or even hit and miss good paying freight. Going from here and there to whereever and hoping for the best... ...you are not going to do $2.60 a mile to a dry van like that off loadboards consistently. Some may want to beat me up on the rates on that general freight I picked off loadboards.. ..that's ok. They were really not all that bad for what they were and convienient to me getting back to my areas. None of them were $1 a mile or crap like that. Deadhead did kill them but that was a given and necessary. They took me back to where I needed to be and that deadhead was covered by much better paying loads anyways. This is what I am having to do to make money when the freight I normally haul isn;t so busy.