Can New Owner Operators get loads?

Can you get loads sure.

The relevant question is can you get profitable loads. To know that answer you will first need to know all your costs. The cost's include but are not limited to driver compensation, vehicle maintenance and replacement, taxes, insurance, marketing, fuel, ancillary(paper work, computer time, drug consortium, DOT compliance), license and permitting, office employee compensation(this may be you but all your actions should be compensated yes?), unpaid miles......


Once you have arrived at this number you can now look into whether loads exist that could meet those numbers and if you would have access to them.

My basic advice for new O/O with no connections for at least a partially stable freight base is to go with someone like Mercer, Landstar, Ace Doran, or any percentage based lease type carrier. I advise this so they can learn what a freight lane is, what it should pay and what it actually costs to run it.

Can you do it without that sure. Your odds go up if you learn the industry first though. i would also recommend an industry specific business training program such as the one offered by NASTC.

 

I think we have a lot of good information coming in here from people who are serious about what they do, and are serious about helping others. That is GREAT !

Is anyone who is an owner operator willing to give a list of expenses that they factor in to arrive at a Cost per mile to operate a truck? I am building my cost spreadsheet and will use the data to compare to validate or correct what my thoughts are.

This thread is becoming very helpful very quickly ! Thanks to all.

 

With becoming an OO without any experience, wouldnt this be over the top? I am thinking just doing my own authority trucking part of it is gonna be a handful?...interesting concept for later maybe?

 

working for someone else is no doubt a safer way to go, but I cant do that doesnt look like, cause my tickets are alot higher than yours !

 

It is weird how society reacts sometimes... just because someone cannot do something they assume another person cannot. Or even if they can do it, they tell the other person that they will not be able to handle it. I was told I could never start a successful site and I did with over 30,000 members within two years. I was then told it was silly of me to upgrade my host because I would never need that much space and bandwidth, and later I had to get three dedicated servers just to handle it. I was told I could never learn how to become a programmer, and later I won awards for programmer of the month multiple times.

If you do your research and will not quit and work through the tough times and understand that it will not be easy at first, go for it. I love trucking and I may buy my own truck one day so I can have more freedom.

 

don't tell me I can't....


Because I will then.

 

We can do anything as long as we weigh the balance of risk and reward......

 

Hey Sooner.

Would you mind sharing that spadsheet with expected costs. I can't seem to send pms just yet, but if you could store it somewhere and oink it that would be awesome.

 

I put that together for my business plan. Bank accepted it. But this one the profit is set to show break-even