Percentage

What kind of trailer are you pulling?

Calling @BoyWander...

 

So you have your own authority and pay for your own trucking liability insurance and cargo insurance but you still lease onto a carrier for 80%. You can easily find a carrier paying 80% including the liability and cargo, and trailer.

Basically you're just with them to dispatch you because you don't know how to find your own loads. Obviously you don't know how to calculate costs either, or research what would make financial sense for your business.

If you're running on your own authority with your own insurances, then you need to be getting 95% from that carrier. And that 95% should be at least $6000 per week's worth of work.

If you're running on their authority, and their insurance, I'd drop your own insurance. That's a $20,000+/year note that is just going down the drain. But then again, if you got your own authority and insurance, and still giving up 80%, that extra 15% could easily equal $30,000+ per year.

Personally I find it absolutely ridiculous that you've gone out and got your own authority and don't know what you're doing. You're on a fast track to bankruptcy unless you sit down with a pad of paper, a calculator, and the internet, and sit there for a whole day doing nothing but crunching numbers. You need to find out what it's really costing you to do business. I'd tell you what that number is, but you need to figure it out.

Lemme ask you this.
If you ran 100,000 miles this year, what will your costs most likely be? Not including what you pay yourself. (And I hope to God you're not thinking "what do you mean? I pay myself anything that's left over!")
I already know the answer, it's pretty much the same for everyone, even though most will disagree and say I'm crazy.

Hint: no, having a paid off truck, and/or used truck does not mean your costs are lower.

 

Harsh post.

Needed to be said.

 

I disagree: it didn't need to be said. Someone that comes into this business making decisions that bad doesn't need to be told anything; they have the personality that has to learn the hard way.
With all the info on this forum and a calculator on every phone, folks making decisions like getting ones authority to then lease for 80% are going to fail. Every time.

 

To the OP, there are holes in what you are saying.

First off what are you doing?

I mean let's get it straight - do you have an authority, or just a truck owner who is leased onto a carrier?

What do you mean you can't write off the 20 per load?

How does it happen 'they' help out on maintenance?

If you are looking for advice or answering a question or three, then fill in the blanks.

 

So many new.owner ops jumping into the pool, I don't want to see rates drop because of it. But some people,.well, many people, don't even know how to use a calculator. Obstinate hillbillies who you can even prove to them that they're losing money and they'll.still tell you you're stupid and then even go as far as telling you they like.to.pull cheap cuz their dad told.them to never turn down work.

And yes, I've actually experienced that. In real life and not a nightmare.

 

Well this is where I think most of us should stop promoting authorities and start demanding means testing to get an authority.

TOO many owners are cheap to begin with, I just got an email from one asking advice on a truck issue which he doesn't think he should pay $200 to fix a problem but wants to do it for under $50. I told him stop being cheap, fix it right and keep the truck rolling.

The same goes for the times they hire people, they can't afford to pay them a month in advance so they screw with the pay, cause grief for the driver and fire them hoping they won't try to collect.

This is a good example of not really knowing what's going on. Not always the fault of people like the OP but on the other hand they open themselves up for this which causes many of them to be cheap and then take loads just to cover the bills then our rates go down.

 

Running a business without a business plan, COMPLETE with spreadsheets for calculating Profit and Loss, Balance Sheet, and Cash Flow, is like trying to drive through rush hour blindfolded. You're bound to hit something. Hopefully nobody dies.

Running a business on blind hope will result in blind triage. "I never saw THAT coming!"