Wanting to be a Owner Operator after CDL School

Nobody cares about your age. They care about your driving. Work as a company driver 1-2 years before you decide to own a truck. 90+% of new drivers leave the industry in the first year.

 

You walk by a boxing gym. You see a flyer about fighting some brutal guy to win big bucks. You're considering becoming a fighter. This guy you're going to fight is strong as hell, has a record of 100 wins, 10 losses, and 100 KOs, and 5 of those KOs ended up as fatalities.

Would you still want to fight this guy?

"How much money are we talking, Six?"

$10mil. You have the opportunity to make big bucks, but MOST get KTFO and some never get off the ground ever again. Confidence is good, but do you even know how to fight?

You're standing in the middle of the gym talking about fighting this guy, and the guys in the gym are being nice and telling you that MOST people are going to get KTFO, and you tell them about your confidence in yourself. Before going pro, shouldn't you start training, and have some amateur fights to learn more about it? After all, there is more to boxing than swinging at an opponent's head with your fists.

"But Six, we are talking about trucking, not fighting."

Right. They told you that most drivers wash out as rookies. Are they telling you the truth? Sure. You want to be an owner op without learning the basics. What are the odds that you will be successful when the majority who did learn the basics got KTFO? Don't you think your odds for success would be much better if you learned the basics in a company truck?

 

The phrase "you dont even know what you don't know" holds very true when it comes to getting into trucking.

Just something else to think about.

 

You can do pretty good in trucking. One year I made $2.37

 

If you are interested in making money, I think it's better to just drive for someone established. These days, you make more money driving someone else's truck. Profit margin is razor thin, and many will debate this, but in my opinion I don't think the reward is worth the cost. There are good jobs out there even for someone inexperienced. Age don't even matter

 

No different than other industry.

 

That can be taken in a few ways.
Have you run a business, successfully?
Or is your understanding in a more general direction.

I look at O/O as something like the question of APU's.
My company doesn't install them because they do not see it as cost effective.
It is a huge up front cost with maintenance costs along the way, and they only keep the trucks for about 4 years. How much fuel savings does it take to offset those costs in that amount of time.

When you buy a truck, all of your eggs are in one single basket.
You are counting on that truck being your ticket, but if it is a high maintenance truck (a lemon) it is just a ticket to being broke.

 

IMHO, at least a year as a company driver before you think about either leasing or buying a truck. Let someone else pay for any rookie mistakes you might make. 60 years old won't keep you from getting a job in trucking if you can pass the physical. Crete has a couple handfuls of company drivers that are over 70, and one or two over 80, I think.