$1 million Owner Operator

Discussion in 'Ask An Owner Operator' started by Big Lebowski, Jul 7, 2021.

  1. Judge

    Judge Road Train Member

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    I got a plan!!
    I know it’ll work!!
    Buy a truck.
    Take and get a driver to drive it for say 50% after fuel, while you sale the truck to him/her.
    You’re now “the bank” have an agreement made up, and you’re halfing the fuel cost.
    Get say a 15-18 truck, not an exteam one with 800k+ but 300-500k.

    I think it’ll work..
     
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  3. God prefers Diesels

    God prefers Diesels Road Train Member

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    Made a slight alteration to your post.
     
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  4. Judge

    Judge Road Train Member

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    Figured that was already had by wanting to add two trucks to existing, maybe I was wrong
     
  5. SteveScott

    SteveScott Road Train Member

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    Why choose a million as a goal? Generally speaking, private company owners aren't paying themselves that much unless they have at least 100 million in profits for a year, and a privately owned company didn't get that big by being stupid. Guys making that kind of money from a company they own or started generally have a board of directors deciding what they should be paid for their work. Profits don't necessarily get invested back into the company, and in most cases are invested elsewhere. As others have stated, trucking has some very thin profit margins and there are much better investments out there. Large insurance companies don't sit on hundreds of millions in premium dollars, they invest it in stocks, bonds, mutual fund and hundreds of other places. Many make much more on those investments than they do in gross profits from the company.
     
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  6. Big Lebowski

    Big Lebowski Bobtail Member

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    Thank you. I've gotten what I needed. Talk amongst yourselves if you wish.
     
  7. Farmerbob1

    Farmerbob1 Road Train Member

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    There is no way a single person can run a trucking operation that earns a million per year UNLESS it's some sort of highly specialized freight, like maybe windmill haulers, nuclear waste transport, or stuff like that.

    What you will discover is that as your company gets past a few trucks, one person simply can't handle all the problems. I'd say that a single person can maybe handle the workload from 10 trucks, 20 if they are REALLY good at organizing and have a good stable of solid trucks and drivers.

    So, as you grow that business, you will need to hire more and more employees.

    Income after expenses per truck will slowly shrink as you bring in dedicated dispatch, dedicated maintenance, dedicated safety, dedicated planners, etc. etc. etc.

    I bet @Dave_in_AZ might have relevant comments for you. Maybe @Midwest Trucker too.
     
  8. Dave_in_AZ

    Dave_in_AZ Road Train Member

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    So you picked up 50 million milers, 50 + 50 really good pieces of equipment, 2 gals to do payrolls and billings, 3 people to juggle trucks and loads, a really good head wrench, 3 more junior wrenches, all of these folks show up everyday and perform at a high level, a yard with a shop and some office space, whilst you do all the planning and booking.

    That's most impressive off of one thread on the internet.
     
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  9. Midwest Trucker

    Midwest Trucker Road Train Member

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    The bad thing about growing too quickly besides not having good cash flow is it takes a lot of time to learn how to be successful. If you have 1 truck your mistakes multiply by 1. For each additional truck it obviously multiplies.

    Early on when I had 1,2, and 3 trucks... even 4 trucks there were several times I was so glad I wasn’t making a mistake x 10. Well if you blow up overnight you face these challenges on the fly and many do so also undercapitalized.

    Generally ends on high debt and low cash flow. One hiccup and it’s deuces.
     
  10. TallJoe

    TallJoe Road Train Member

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    At appears, that in trucking, that One million per year does not exist, Big Lebowski.
    Not even with a hundred trucks. :(

    On the other hand, it would take 10-15 solo owner operators in real life....and perhaps only as few as 5 from this forum, to add up their profits to a million.
    The best thing to do is to clone yourself 10-15 times and program the clones to do what you do and give all the money they make back to you. A fleet of 15 cloned owner operators would surely bring a profit of 1 million back to their master owner, year after year after year after year...
     
  11. wichris

    wichris Road Train Member

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    Not that you can't make that profit but that it would be a fool that took that as "pay" without reducing the company operating cost instead.
     
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