Finding freight to haul

With my company a handful of drivers have their own authority. The vast majority simply operate under the company's authority. I run under the company's authority and could run exclusively with broker loads, but I don't do that because company dispatched loads pay more.

It will depend on the company whether you can work with brokers or not.

If you get your own authority and want to be an independent operator, many brokers won't work with you because you don't have X months or years experience as an independent. Some won't care.

If you go independent be prepared to have at least six weeks of operating capital. That's because you will be sending invoices to the broker after delivering a load. Those invoices will be Net 30. That means they have to pay you in 30 days. Typically it takes longer than that to actually see the money. Many load board apps show the average days to get paid and it typically runs around 32-35 days.

 

I buy distressed companies if they are worth it, I take the assets roll them into my fleet.

I lease to companies for most of the fleet. The carriers do the paper work, chase the money and provide the loads. Landstar and a couple others are my main go to carriers, LS provides the best return for my operation so far because of the diversity.

I have bought a few little companies with authorities, two are operational, the other two were suspended.

The one authority handles all the dedicated work except one or two accounts through LS, and the other handles specialized high value freight.

 

Out of mere curiosity how many trucks do you run?

 

When you're leased you'll be paid directly from your Carrier. The settlement frequency and rates vary wildly from company to company. You'll have to see what they offer when you start to look around. Some guys will run their own numbers for their truck only and lease their extra equipment to a different Carrier (under their authority) and let them deal with finding a driver etc etc. As far as maintenance goes it's your responsibility 100 percent. Why would anyone else pay for it? Even if they did, they'll find a way to get it back through deductions or through the rates somehow. Unless you plan on leasing your truck to an Intermodal Carrier, you'll have a hard time finding a place to drive for without a year or two of "recent" OTR experience.

 

If you pay a factoring company a certain amount you send the invoice to them they pay you then they wait for the customer to pay them. Some brokers ive seen like ch robinson have a factoring company to.

 

I agree, for example, my friend wants me to go with the company hesh with...
He does approx 3 to 4 loads regionally the company finds all the loads, it's basically the same companies and same loads each week, I think they do an 80% to the owner (his own Authority) & 20% to the other company...
I think it is a good arrangement!
Unless you want to find your own shippers/ customers/ contracts...