landstar

How do you build these relationships? I am an introvert and don't like to call people and chat them up about how their kid is doing in Little League this year. What does it take to be successful Landstar?

 

That was my plan. How good of a truck do you need to go to Landstar? I was thinking maybe save up for another 6 months and get a 2014 or 15

 

I like driving a company truck now because I have a guarantee minimum pay every week. So if dispatch can't find a load or truck need repairs. I don't have to worry. I'm getting paid no matter what. I find it Interesting how this company keeps the truck loaded and rolling. I get paid vacation and 5 personal days. I get paid detention pay even if the shipper does not pay. Most my load are drop and hook so detention is not something I even used yet. The guaranteed pay basically works as I get paid for 2,500 miles a week. The draw back of the deal is if I don't get 2,500 miles by the weekend. They usually keep me running vs sending me home for the weekend. They then pay me and extra $100 for working the weekend plus the guaranteed pay or more of I drive over 2,500 miles but I alway get the extra $100 just for working g the weekend. Then if they don't that get me home next weekend because of anything like say my miles was not at 2,500. They keepe running and pay an extra $200 for work two weekends in a row. I will say the home time is only 34 hours lots of time or on what they call a weekend. So nothing is perfect but I'm making money money driving company truck. I also got a new 2017 company truck.

 

Just spent 5 weeks jerking with idiots at New Leasing. Got a call the week before Xmas from my recruiter, "Your ready for orientation". Keep in mind, this process started in October. Got home (Vegas) the Wednesday before Xmas, told my carrier we were done. Turned in my plates, parked the truck. I knew the holidays were on us , so I figured the week after New Years. Everytime I sent in a stack of paperwork, I had another stack, then fingerprinting, then some other crap. They could have sent everything I need to get wrapped up all at once, but...So, after five weeks and 20k plus in revenue gone, screw Landstar.

 

Success at landstar ? basically like being successful anywhere....do the job, keep ur word, and communicate.

 

build relationships

easily said isn't it.build a relationship Thats why I would never lease on to a company again to much aggravation starve while your trying to make a name for yourself with an agent then you have to do it with another and so on.because in most cases one agent isn't going to make your week,and you have to be able to get back to his area.Its like working for a union the older guys are hogging the runs making $$ and will tell you it's great.while the new guys starve.

 

Driving the truck is only 10% of being a successful O/O. Your ability to make money happens outside of the truck building your business. If you are just taking loads off the Landstar board you are going to be poor. Dealing with the brokers directly gets you the good loads before they even go on the board.
A new clean shiny truck is not always a sign of a successful O/O. A dirty roach shed on wheels is also not a sign of an unsuccessful O/O.

 

I wonder how many Landstar agents have trouble covering their loads because they can't find good drivers. I would be it pretty low number. People don't talk much about how some agents have their own trucks. Stuff like how a driver help me get good load because he knew the agent. He had a nice new truck, his wife was the agent.

Having a wife's as agents work great if she your wife but it kinda screws up the system because as a lease O/O you are trying to get loads from a system that you can't ever get no matter how good you are. It's not like hard work will ever beat that system. When you don't have access to all the load or you can't see all the loads, what do you do? People will say you just not a smart business person. You could be a great business person and you will never beat a agent and wife team or even and agent and friend team.

 

It's not all doom and gloom. But you have to find your own defenition of succcess. I ran 60 loads all last year in about 91K miles. Lots of time at home. And enough revenue to get my bills paid and do some saving. I have a few agents I can count on for good loads after working with them diligently for the first year, simply by keeping my word. (and I'm not married to any of them). I have only been with LS for about 18 months, so I'm not an "old timer".

It's pretty simple...understand that anything worth having takes time and there are no instant results. Just be a man of your word and it will pay off. That's not saying that if a guy leaves LS it's because he did it wrong, just that LS is not for everybody.

 

Disclaimer: I've never leased a truck and I've never owned a truck.

My fundamental problem with these companies, and I don't wish to pick on only Landstar, is the business model seems to place the O/O in a position to take the most risk, but reap the least reward in the partnership. I don't know, and I'm not trying to pee in any successful O/O's Cheerios, but it just doesn't seem to me to be a good idea to put yourself that kind of situation considering the start up cost of: purchasing a truck, setting up an escrow (maintenance), insurance, etc... If I'm going to partner with someone, I want my partner to share the risk as equally as the reward. At a minimum, the reward should be proportioned with the risk, meaning if I'm taking the most risk, I should get the most reward out of the deal, not them.