Kansas Grain Hauler Questions

Welcome blacksmith thats crazy sublette ks is my home town. I grew up in farming and grain hauling buisness. My dad has been an o/o sense 1970 running out of sublette. Our farm is north of sublette one mile and a half on the west side where all the grains bins and brick home and 80x120 shop is, that will always be my home. Your exsperiancing what has put alot of truckers out of buisness out there unfourtanately its the cheap amigos thats crashes the buisness. What your getting is probly cream of the crop for the area. Dads down to just three trucks now and they run 100 mile radius of sublette. Its hard to pay a driver in that buisness dad has two guys that have been with him nearly 20 years and no way could ya pay them what there really worth. They have been great and stuck threw thick and thin. I know dads trucks haul mostly direct for feedyards and alchohol plants. Dont know what to tell ya its the nature of the beast.

 

Read the hopper O/O's thread it gives you some idea what's happening. Crop Jockeys right the latinos are just killing the rates out there. The rates are lousy going out there and coming back.

I don't think anybody in grain hauling can afford a major breakdown right now.

 

Blacksmith, let me add my welcome to the board. I don't want to sound like a downer, but I also am not one to give false hope. Like you, I came from a farming background. In fact, my dad is just now experiencing his 3rd year not farming in 56 years. My last year running an L2 Gleaner was 2002. I've been in a truck full time ever since. We started our company 7 years ago with one truck, and, with ALOT of hard work and sacrifices, we've grown it since then. It's not easy. I'll give you a few points to consider based on all I have learned over the years.

1. With fuel where it is right now, you should be grossing AT LEAST $1.50 per mile for ALL MILES you're running to be profitable on any kind of level. Any less, and you're not making enough money to justify your time, effort, and most of all, liability of having a truck running down the road.

2. You should use a broker to fill in the slow times only, even if you know him personally. In hopper bottom, ESPECIALLY in western Kansas, the competition is so fierce, there's no room to loose any revenue, even to a broker. To survive, you've got to develop relationships directly with shippers. I suggest you ask local Coop managers who to get in contact with to develop those relationships. The 9% you're giving your broker is valuable revenue you can't afford to loose. You're paying for his Rolodex, that's all. Also, you may be able to negotiate a better rate than your broker, because he makes money no matter what the rate...the motivation is just not there for him.

3. If you're only running one truck, you should be running it yourself. If you're going to try to make a living while hiring a driver, with only one truck, you'll quickly find everyone made money but you. The fuel man, the parts man, the insurance man, the driver, etc. You'll be at the end of the line, every time. You'll find yourself paying out more than the truck brought in sometimes. For comparison, my dad and I dispatch 13 trucks in our company, and we both still drive every day. The money we make driving our own trucks still outshines what we make running the other trucks. We couldn't quit driving if we wanted to. It's just that tight.

4. DON'T HAUL CHEAP FREIGHT! I know this sounds like a broken record, but it's true. If you let ANY customer know, just once, that you'll haul for substandard rates, they'll never take you seriously when you tell them their rate is too low. They'll know you'll eventually cave if they wait you out. BUT, if you develop a reputation for hauling only for fair, profitable rates, they'll give you what you need to be profitable when you ask for it, and when they're in a position to need your services. If you can't afford to park that truck to wait out low rates occasionally, you're in trouble. If the rates never come up to where you need them to be to be profitable, the cold hard truth is that you're either in an over saturated market, or, you're not running you ruck efficiently enough.

Blacksmith, I don't want to come off as a know-it-all, or to sound like I'm trying to talk you out of the business. That couldn't be farther from the truth. I'm only passing on what my family has employed as rules to operate by that has made our trucking business successful. One thing is for sure- in trucking, there's no such thing as easy money. Your biggest challenge is that you are competing with individuals who are willing to live off MUCH less than you or I am used to living off of. That's a hard road to travel. I wish you the best of luck, and hope that you can find a way to turn things around.

 

Blacksmith: What Highside says is correct and to the point. Up here in Iowa it isn't the foreigners it is the big farmers who are buying trucks to haul their grain and then when they are done with that they are hauling for cost or below just to keep their drivers busy.

 

Oh & by the way. Welcome Blackjack.

 

I am to new to the idea of hauling wheat and corn hauling in the Kansas area . I am fixing to make a change in careers from being a master John Deere tech for 20 years to an owner operator . I want to travel to Kansas and haul crops to elevators and from elevators to ports or other major depots . I have done my research and have found that as said earlier in this post is that farmers are low balling prices for hauling out of elevators to get the loads and keep there drivers busy . WELL I will tell you why they are bidding so cheap to the elevators for hauling . They bid low and take truckers business because they can and why ? they are running there trucks under there farm insurance blanket which is very very cheap for farmers to insure there trucks but here is the kicker when they are hauling out of a public elevator they become commercial . They are doing it illegally . If they had to pay commercial insurance as you and I they would not do it . Farmers will screw you every chance they get . So if you ever find out who is hauling out of an elevator find out who there insurance company is and ask them if they are cover hauling commercially . I sure will.