Best way to transition from one truck to a fleet?

I think you will find out that with three, even five trucks with drivers in them, you will come out at the end of the day than you will with one and driving it yourself.
I am not saying do not do it, I ran three for several years, plus some oo's, but I always drove too, the other trucks profited, but I would have hated to have to live on what I cleared off my other two, that I had drivers in.

 

If you had one truck, and then two.. you are a fleet. Congratulations!

Then three trucks, and four. Five, and six. Bear with me keep counting. Seven, and eight etc.

Pretty soon you would be hiring people to deal with the aggravating drivers and their problems so you can sleep at night.

One truck is plenty. Ive met people in my life working for them when they own like 230 tractors and two times that in reefers great dane scattered all over the USA in god only knows where doing what etc.

He probably has a smart accountant that tells him every pay day if he is doing good or facing bankruptcy.

 

My old boss in MT had 7 trucks before he stopped driving full time during the week. He said less than that and there wasn’t enough left for him to live on after everything was taken care of plus putting money back to keep growing.

 

@Dave_in_AZ can probably answer your questions. He started with one truck and he's building a small fleet.
He seems to be successful so far and probably has some insights that a lot of people wouldn't.

 

Spot on. The amount of stress running seven trucks is in different league though.

 

Once you build that monster then you got a feed it !!!

 

1) Do you have the freight / connections to keep 3 trucks moving? Good freight.

2) Do you have 3 drivers that are qualified that won't THRASH your equipment, and get from A to B on time safely? ( This is going to be your biggest challenge)

3) Do you have 3 good trucks and trailers? 6 trailers maybe?

4) Where or who or how are you going to service said trucks?

5) Don't even think about it unless you have about $40K cash per truck, after you have them.

6) I think I'd need about 8 or 10 trucks to make what I make driving my truck.

I drive all the time. I work all the time. So there's that.

7) If money is your only motivation, if you have no passion to see others do well, don't do it.

 

I think that's a good approximation. We have different business models but there are a lot of similarities.
Most people, and that includes drivers, aren't aware of how little actual profit there is in trucking.
We run 25 power units and around forty trailers, all of which are paid for.
Three of us own equal shares in the company. At the end of every quarter we divide up what's left equally after paying everything...wages, expenses, a maintenance set aside for each unit, shop supplies, parts, fuel, tires, insurance, property taxes, compliance costs and a whole bunch of other nickle and dime stuff that, if you don't watch every penny of, will bleed you dry.
We pay ourselves last. Sometimes we don't pay ourselves very much.
If it was a good quarter we do alright.If it wasn't a good quarter we take a hit. No complaints, this is the life we chose.
As time goes by, especially here in California, the good quarters are getting harder and harder to come by.

 

I’m just taking this off the top of my head but probably 30 years ago somewhere in that area you could find really good drivers to take care of your stuff they wanted to work for a mom-and-pop organization but nowadays I just don’t think it’s there
we run 10 trucks all owner operators but me. We have the trailers and the work I just don’t want to mess with drivers anymore !!!
You’ve got to have a passion for this business because it takes so dang long to get anywhere in it and that’s if 70% of it goes right anyway don’t let anybody squish your dreams , Good luck and Godspeed

 

One other thing...if you're at home and the phone rings between ten pm and six am its not going to be good news.