Business Plan/ Mentor Needed

Most drivers don't want to sit and wait while you are waiting for your authority and insurance to get active. They don't want to have any of those headaches - they just want to drive, and collect money. That being said, you may have to bite the bullet and insure a truck sitting idle while you wait for CVOR and US authority to go active. It took me 5 weeks iirc. You may be able to insure the truck that is currently under the other carrier at the same time - this would be a question for your insurance agent.

If I were you I would never go into this just trying to do only ON and QC right out of the gate. Never. If sticking to dry van, I would look at routes into and out of the states within about a 500-600 mile radius of ON. Think MI, IN, IL, NY, PA, OH, etc. No matter which way you cut it, it will be expensive starting up. The other half of it, do you know what rates you can expect running in these markets? Will you actually make any more money with a lot more paperwork and headache than the way you are doing it now? It will take full time dedication to have a chance at success. It is not something you can do "on the side".

 

You don't want all of your work to come from 1 sole broker. He will rape you. The rates going from TO to MTL are better than the rates from MTL to TO. There are more loads going east than west. There is almost always an imbalance of freight, what I mean is there is rarely a time when the inbound freight and outbound freight are the same. In these situations you get large carriers mostly to do all the easy stuff. You will need to look at all options and yes keep all doors open by having US authority.

You may get 1.80 to 2.00 CAD for LOADED miles. I am talking about TO to MTL lane here. The broker/customer does not care about your empty miles. Remember the truck eats fuel for EVERY mile and so does the maintenance account and the driver still wants paid too. This can drag your gross revenue per every mile down quickly.

I am not familiar with dry van rates to the markets I said earlier. I really can't help you with that. I just see plenty of dry van work always posted for those places. I am familiar with the dry van rate for TO to MTL and back. You would do well if you averaged 2.00 cad on the round trip for all miles. You are likely to be more in the 1.75 range. Don't forget, that lane is only about 350 miles each way. Can you cover your monthly costs with short miles at that rate? Also, even if you pay the driver 0.50, that is $175 or so per day. Will he be happy enough working for that to stay working for you?

 

I have no idea what the rates are from/to those states. I have never run it myself or even called on it. My customers don't run that area. As a rule of thumb, the longer the run, the less it pays, especially in the dry van world.

I should say you are catering to a driver more than you should. You should be building a business around how YOU can make more money for yourself. Figuring out how to run it around the driver's schedule often doesn't work out for the carrier. If you find you can make more money running say, Toronto to Chicago or Indianapolis and back, but that wouldn't work out very well for the MTL guy. What would you do?

I run a lot of stuff to NJ. Lots of drivers just say "I DON'T DO NJ/EAST COAST! WEST ONLY!!!!!!!!!!" Then they also complain of pay or sitting in truck stops, etc. I am not interested in hiring anyone who says "I only do this or drive here or drive a truck with a yellow motor, I only drive during daylight, etc. etc. etc." They can sit at home and stay hungry for all I care. I have cultivated the customers, and they are a small part of a bigger machine. I have cultivated what works for me, they need to cultivate what works for them. Or just be a miserable person 24/7, that's fine too. To sum it up, I like to say, is the dog wagging the tail? Or is the tail wagging the dog?

 

How many trucks do you have running under other various carrier's authority? Have you secured your trailers yet? And suitable parking?

 

So you don't have your own authority? I thought you mentioned something about it. If I were in your situation, I'd get my own authority instead of being leased onto some ####ty carrier. Then you'll have full control over your loads and rates.