Breaking into the industry. Need advice.

Is it possible to start out with your own authority and succeed without any prior experience, sure but it is going to be harder. I never went to driving school, took my class A in a dump truck and trailer, never even had been inside a tractor trailer before I took my first load of cars into New York City. Would I advise someone to do it the way I did, no way, but if you want something bad enough and are not a complete idiot you can do it.

My advice to you, given you want to do this without the usual route of a starter company, get your upgraded cdl A with all the endorsements first, then start shopping for affordable equipment and insurance quotes. Most insurance companies will want to know what equipment you are going to be using, take the VIN from the truck and trailer you are most likely to purchase and use those for your quote, as you may find the insurance for a new driver in a start-up business to be too high. Do not buy the truck until you are sure you can get insured. Once you have your insurance, then purchase your equipment and obtain operating authority and hit the road. Using brokered loads at first will not be as profitable but it will bring in income and let you get an idea of the business end of things before you go solicit your own customers, but start learning sales, you will need a few direct customers if you really want to make good money. Stay away from the factoring companies, borrowing money on your receivables is a last resort financial option.

If you have good money management skills, substantial savings, and a great work ethic then it is fairly simple to start and run a trucking company. If you need someone to tell you what to do all the time, can't save a dime, have poor credit, etc, then a company driver is your best route. What ever you decide, good luck. It can be done, I have done it along with a few of my friends, one knew nothing about trucking and now owns a five truck fleet making great money.

 

On a side note, yes, you can lease onto your cousins authority, but he will be legally responsible for everything you do and will have to qualify you as a driver for his company including putting you on his drug testing program, keep records for your truck as if it was his, the loads will have to pay in his name, etc. You can insure yourself, but the policy will also have to name his company as named additional insured, which usually costs more than just making a broker or customer a certificate holder because it gives his company full rights to file claims and accept settlements on your insurance policy. Leasing under his authority but running your own operation makes it much more complicated than if you just obtained your own authority and will cost him money so be prepared to give him 10% or so of your revenue for this privilege, plus if he doesn't have a good reputation then you will not gain anything from using his existing authority.

 

Lastly, you want OTR experience without actually going over the road, that is not possible. It sounds like you want or need to be more of a local or small regional driver, which is fine, but either way it will not give you OTR experience. OTR involves being away from home for longer periods of time, usually 14-21 days at a time, with short home time periods. OTR is not all it is cracked up to be, I have been OTR, local, and regional and currently run a car haul operation that only services 3 states and rarely am I ever more than 150 miles from home yet I am making more money than I have ever made in my career. In my opinion, local and regional pay better than OTR for the time and effort involved. Just my two cents, take it for what it is worth.

 

I can't see purchasing equipment, buying insurance, etc., etc.... just to call brokers and hope they will pay you enough to pay the bills.

 

Check with these about gaining experience and maybe good home time:

Doug Andrus Distributing
D&D Transportation (ddtsi.com)

 

SO you want what can't happen. OTR is, by its nature, out for extended periods of time.
You don't want that obviously.
So you're not going to get the OTR experience. Than you need to rethink what you want or need.