Caution Prospective Independent O/O! My Embarrassment.

Not posting your truck is causing you to leave a LOT of money on the table Joe. I get what you're saying that you don't want to work with unknown brokers and extend that credit to them. So don't. I'm sure you are set up with all the big players CH, TQ., etc... So only book loads from those guys when they call. From my experience the past several years they always had much deeper pockets than small fish brokers anyway.

And $4,000 from Chicago to Miami I wouldn't accept $4,000 to Miami from Nashville. Although I have a percentage off the top which you don't have, but still, that's really low IMO. To be fair though I never go that far south into Florida. I have effectively priced myself out of going there. Which is OK because I'm only going there to make money for me, not anyone else. If it doesn't make me money I don't go.

Its your first year. Relax. No-one starts right out the gate hitting one out of the park. Takes time to home everything in.

 

I post my truck the day before I get down to L.A. for my run back up. Most of the time the calls start coming in the day of, after I've already booked.

However, the calls the afternoon before give me pretty good insight into what I can expect to negotiate. It's a good fishing lure.

 

When deciding which brokers to trust I'd stick with older brokerages with very strong credit ratings. There are a bunch of services for qualifying potential customers, and the cheaper ones are worth it. One of the tricks of reading a credit report is to notice how it's trending. If someone's days to pay are getting longer and longer it's a warning sign.

 

TallJoe, also for perspective. Each O/O has to decide what they want to do.

I've said before, I have no interest in chasing loads all over the country. Not interested in flat, heavy or refer. That's just me. I only want to run the
I-5 corridor with a 53' dry van.

2016 was my first full year with my own authority. My numbers were somewhat better than your current numbers. However, I knew that I was still on (still am) a learning curve. I've continued to improve and hone my negotiating skills, develop a decent core of ppl to do business with.

What I've discovered is there's a lot of niche opportunities, as you've described in other postings. This year I've really focused on those opportunities and I'm content (so far) with the results.

The following numbers are just for October so far, 3 weeks.

They're not earth shattering, however, they're also not too bad for a dry van that starts every week loading out of Oregon/Washington to California and back:

Dispatched miles: 6291
Deadhead miles: 346
All miles: 6637
Revenue: $15,400
Rate per all miles. $2.32

I've been pulling these numbers consistently in 2017.

The other component that is almost as important to me is as a profitable margin like I have posted here is hometime.

In 22 days this month, I have been home 11 days. Maybe not full complete days. But enough to stay connected to my wife/family, homefront and to maintain a reasonable balance of social stability

 

The guy I used to work for ran about 150 trucks. He says "trucking is a business of pennies." My reply as a lease operator under his authority authority was "depends on who's pennies you're talking about."

His pennies were consolidated over millions of dollars of revenue. A small % of millions isn't too bad.

However, if you and I try to operate on that same % of return, we've only bought ourselves a job, at best. We have to find a way to turn the pennies into nickels, dimes and quarters.

 

So I guess we just need to check if the issues that caused this are solved then. What did your last full work week look like?

I mean it could very easily just be that you had no idea what you were doing the first few months and it was rough. That's not a big deal because it won't be repeated.

First thing you have to figure out when something has gone wrong: how can I make absolutely certain that this NEVER happens again. If you can't make it NEVER figure out how close to NEVER you can get without breaking the bank.

 

@TallJoe , do you have a laptop with excel on it? I made a couple of simple spread sheets I'd be happy to share with you. You enter the miles and days you project for a run and it tells you your min $ for the run. I also keep track of every mile and load I run and am always evaluating my performance. I see where I'm trending every day, week, month and for the year. My goal is to always book over my yearly average (up, up, up). It has helped a lot. I can see the weeks I made simple mistakes and what it costs me to make them. I also see the diffrence of taking a low paying backhaul or deadheading out. I can also break it down into territory's and inbound or outbound. These spreadsheets don't calculate to the penny but give a clear picture of weather your gaining or losing. After 2 years it's been perty darn close though.

 

Great Post buddy. I was running under my own authority as well over the past year and decided to go back to being leased on because of all the extra expense involved. I was pretty much at the same point per mile and just decided if I was gonna run for that, let someone else pay for the trailer and insurance. Funny thing is I am making more than I was on my own now.

 

So you switched due to "extra expenses involved".

You make $$ by lowering cost OR increasing revenue. Which lever did you try to yank? and what happened that stopped the levers from going to maximum point on either side?

Or did you find the business side of the operations too much to manage?