Buying multiple trucks

I had five trucks at one time. Finding drivers is the issue. You literally have to go through ten to find a good one. Then the other issue, those ten drivers will tear the crap out of the equipment. Personally, the best day of my life is when I sold that last truck.

 

One thing to keep in mind as you expand is the law of diminished returns. This comes into play a few different ways most notably the additional office Personnel needed to manage combined with things like workman's comp. Typically, for efficiency sake, you will want one person dispatching per 20 trucks. That will add the costs of salary as well as benefits for the dispatcher. Let's not forget the office space necessary for personnel and all the related equipment. Continuing to add a financial burden is cost of workman's comp which would be roughly 10% of your total payroll per year. Let's say the average payroll is $50,000 per person per year. With 20 drivers and possibly 4 or office personnel, you'll be spending $1, 250,000 for payroll. That right there will have an estimated workman's comp cost of $125,000 per year. Which means half of the gross revenue of one truck out of your Fleet will go just to cover that cost alone.
We deal in an industry with a margin of pennies not dollars. None of us is here saying not to do it. What we are saying is learn as much as you can with the real numbers truly are.

Edit* Personally for my trucks it cost an average of $1.44 per mile to break even. Based on that alone I know exactly how much each load needs to pay for me to be profitable. Once you master cost accounting you can actually move forwards with some degree of confidence.

 

Those are the dirty little secrets few know about, Workmans Comp and Unemployment Insurance. When I closed the doors WC was $18 a hundred and my UI was at 11% of payroll. In the end, it was just not worth it. And no way I was going to pay my guys and gals with 1099's.