Review our plans?

Inbound GW is $100 if you don't have pre-pass the last time I went across it a year ago. Pre-pass is cheaper.

 

Sorry we pay $85 to cross. Cash price is $105. I was looking at the tolls we paid out - hate that area.

 

I give you credit for trying to work through the numbers in a logical manner. Your pro-forma is a decent first attempt and good starting point for someone without any industry experience. Some of your assumptions are reasonable, others are well outside practical expectations. One of the more glaring is your mileage assumption @ 20,000 / month. Particularly in the FECC environment, this is very unrealistic. A team truck will turn 5,000 miles ( maybe more ) in some weeks, but, not consistently. There will be weeks when the truck turns 1/2 your projection ( maybe less ), and also remember that all miles are not revenue miles. The next load rarely waits around the corner from the previous delivery, especially in the expedited sector. Situations will often arise where you will incur several hundred miles of dead-head expenses to pick-up the next high dollar load. Those costs may or may not be off-set by revenue.

 

Sorry omitted E's.

However, the b units are vans, Super b's are Sprinter types, the c type no longer exist, and the D is a straight truck with or without sleeper.

E is a tractor trailer.

Interested and actually doing are two different things. THIS is a full time job to get it off the ground and manage it. One issue you will face are idiot drivers, good ones are very hard to find and just because they make you money now, in the future they will screw up.

What you are missing is to understand how the system works, and how to make use of your drivers to the fullest extent, is to actually do the work for at least a year.

That said, the other half of the equation is that you need to understand how business works, and maybe you have some back ground or maybe not, the key to success, especially in a niche market like expediting, is to understand how to manage the market to leverage it.

At least you can see where I would have taken this, but it isn't as easy as you think. The industry is in flux, there is a lot of cross over between segments of the market and expediting is diluted by many different segments by the mean fact anyone can do it with a cargo van or a cheap box truck. megas have entered the market, they tried to capture the revenue, driving the rates down so far that it is hard to so this as it was. Sure there are successes, I know of a few, one here and another world famous couple but there are real stories behind them that are not talked about - I won't say on a forum so don't ask.

Sort of wrong, FedExCC is an extension of Ground, it handles both overflow and expedited freight. The got to get it there thing is long past, with a few exceptions and the other stuff is or was earned. Yes you can have capacity taken by one load, but on the other hand FedExCC still operates under the exclusive use concept, the customer is paying for that real estate and no one else gets it.

On the other hand, the mileage and wear is about the same, you may come out ahead in the long run but overall it doesn't impact your maintenance costs by maybe a fraction of a cent.

Rates when I started to work with FedExCC were sustainable but they've dipped a lot and I could not see working for them with a low rate. I moved over to ground for some of the trucks and maintain better stability. One of the problems they had is a lack of work in key areas, and as an owner you can't forecast work without their help. At times FedExCC has gone outside for work when trucks sit instead of tapping the ground and express overflows (they actually will stick some of this stuff on the boards and get bids to move it). The other thing is there is a lot of favoritism in the fleet, something that will be undoubtedly disputed maybe by a few here, but its there. THIS will effect your bottom line more than anything else.

Also as mentioned by the poster above me st8, there are other factors involved like dwell time - time between load offers (notice not loads) and positioning to capture a load. I've sat for more than two days waiting for an offer and had to refuse the only one that came along because the rate was below a buck a mile. I took the loss to move 600 miles in order to get work. It happens all the time.

My recommendations are to look for a place that will turn consistent revenue, not high dollar stuff. Like I said I moved my trucks out of CC and into Ground because of the lack of consistency and this is after driving for them for a while.

 

I really appreciate the kind words. Im a little bit of a amatuer. If you are talking to me.

I have a love of learning and also things have changes quite much since the 2001 year. (Apologies for Grammar structure, ASL is my primary language, I can process faster mentally than english words.)

Take care and have a great day, I look forward to whatever more information you can elaborate and build on beyond this post. Im like a Number 5, input please. I am addicted to information.

 

Your unfamiliarity with the industry comes through with a hairbrained idea like getting your CDL (among other ideas/plans) at a later point and doing some driving yourself from time to time. You have no driving experience so you won't be driving anything for FedexCC. You may own trucks and have them leased there but FedexCC will have minimal driver standards on who you can seat in those trucks.

I think this is a crazy idea and lots of people without any knowledge and crazy ideas get taken for a ride in this industry. It's going to be a full time job managing your trucks. Hope you don't mind working your other full time job on maybe 2 or 3 hours of sleep a night sometimes. Your friend must be independently wealthy, came into some inheritance and found a fun way to blow it or something like that. I suspect that as with many owners there is more to his story than he is letting on. You are only hearing about the good stuff and how he makes great money on it but not hearing how much is bleeding out.

 

there's a bunch of people who are leased on with FedExCC at the expeditorsonline.com board. probably worth checking in over there as fedex seems to be a major piece of your plan.

As a fleet owner, I also don't think it's wise to open up a fleet while you've got another job and can't drive yourself. I'd reconsider the whole operation. Better to go on a nice vacation than squander the money on trucking.

 

The few who told the truth are not there any more.

 

If your going to build a company you need to experience driving. The rigors that come with it, the waiting, the stress. High paying loads are rare and everyone knows where to look. As far as trucks go they break constantly. You need to be fairly mechanically inclined to fix your stuff or know enough that you don't get ripped off on the road because you will be taken advantage of. Bottom line best way to get experience is to do it first. I would never work for someone like you. PS know one wants to drive a Freightliner cascades. Get red oval trucks and drivers will work cheaper