Are You Profitable?

Did you know Simon has been back in business a few years now?

 

Took 3 1/2 months off this year and still in the green even with a truck payment.

As far as places shutting down, there are all kinds of reasons for it. For the larger places, many of them use debt to try and grow and usually go too far. Some of them ride this for years knowing it's not sustainable, some of them just ride a tight line where a small hiccup sends it all crashing. This industry requires a tremendous amount of capital to profit a relatively small amount per company truck. The bulk of your assets are constantly depreciating. It's an extremely difficult business at fleet level.

Smaller places and single O/O failures often amount to poor management of financials. I've seen guys make the same money I do and not make it just because they won't put any money back for the business. Half of them can't even afford a turbo let alone a real repair but they have a lot of nice stuff at home. Like I always tell people starting out, if your business isn't successful you won't be successful. Usually goes on deaf ears though. Small companies see this a lot as well. Put money back, you never know what's going to happen.

 

His kids. some of them were never out.

 

Your first sentence described our little company right to the letter. We run 25 power units and thirty trailers. We're pretty much a local and regional carrier and serve a niche market in everything we do. We like it that way.

We have an excellent customer base that we've developed over the years but when they have slow times so do we. We've had most of our same customers for over thirty years, use most of the same vendors for our needs, and our driver turnover is almost non-existent.

Our gross profit for the first six months of this year was over ten percent higher than the same time period last year. Our net profit has increased only by about four percent.

We watch our operating expenses like a hawk and we've kept our long term debt structure at a very low and manageable level. That's not good enough but it's all we can do. Our employees are productive and they're dialed into the fact that if the company doesn't make money their jobs won't last. That helps a lot but we can only put so much burden on the employee. The owners have to step up their game, too.

What hurts us most financially, and what we can do absolutely nothing about, are the increasing costs of support logistics...fuel, parts, tires, insurance, and taxes.
We won't cut wages and we won't cut benefits. We figure our drivers , our shop people, and the office staff are part of the reason this company has been in business for over thirty years.

But when we have to hire an extra office person just to keep up with regulatory compliance and HR matters it feels like we're drowning in paperwork. When our shop foreman spends two or three hours every working day on DOT compliance paperwork and documentation for the BIT inspections and has to document every repair to every truck right down to the number of hours spent on each, every nut and bolt involved, and the exact parts repaired or replaced he's not being put to the best possible use for us...or him.

So, sorry this turned into a rant. I seem to be doing a lot of that these days.Are we profitable? Yes. Are we as profitable as we've been in the past? No. And that situation worsens a little every year.

 

IIRC

He passed away. And the kids ran it in to the ground. Now they're back

 

Company driver. I have no complaints. Not 100% sure, but iirc, I was at about 55k end of June. I'm well taken care of. And yes, W2, run legal beagle, run new equipment for a company with a 6 digit USDOT and MC number.

 

He did not pass before he shut down. and the kids never ran Dick Simon trucking, that I know of. One started iirc it was central, one started iirc one way trucking or what ever the power only brokerage is, and seems like there is another one.
What is the name of the company that has the skunk and a skull on the trailers?

 

KTS, Kelles Transport Service I think when spelled out.

 

Company driver here. Well I’m pretty sure I’m profitable to the company. I go anywhere I’m asked to go even nyc, I follow the assigned fuel stops whenever possible, haven’t hit a thing, and haven’t been late that was my fault.

 

I'm leased to a carrier and to be honest after everything ( expenses, wage, taxes) I am only at 10k profit for the year so far. A little is better then none or negative. Not doing as good as I did last year but hopefully things continue to pick up for me these next couple months before winter hits here on the west coast.