Leasing a small fleet to a major company...Please Help!!

I was thinking about hiring a driver for the truck and trailer I'm about to buy, and I would stay at Sysco. But I think reading this thread talked me out of that. So, is it the general consensus that you do better in the long run with just one truck?

 

back when we were running 6 to 10 trucks at a time we always had a rule of thumb we called the 6 truck rule. Basically meaning the 6 truck mark was hard to get beyond. At that point you need to start hiring people to help with the office work. Roughly you end up needing one person for about every 5 trucks. We figure that we did better with one truck (r in our case my dads one truck and my one truck) then we did having extra trucks untill we got over the 6 truck mark

 

That is pretty much close to the mark that I anticipated for as well. Around 6 trucks you will definitely need more than one person doing your office work and on my current numbers, 10 trucks will be a good turning point for profitability. Unfortunately in these times, that profit will be around 3% or less.... (less being the key word here). Not trying to sound negative but with the continuing rising prices etc. and the stagnant low freight, there is not much profit to make above 1 truck.

 

We all are trying to think of ways to make money in this business. All the money comes from the customer that pays the frieght. It is payed for moving frieght from point a to point b. That's it they won't pay more if there is 1 broker or 5 brokers, 1 carrier or a carrier with a leased on truck with a hired employee. However each party involved needs or takes a piece of the pie. Your main problem is that the owner of the truck is allways the last guy to sit at the table. I can think of hundreds of ways in which you could lose your rear in this scenerio. However if you get a good driver. If the carrier has good paying frieght. If you can actually afford paying Workers comp and the payroll costs you might see a small return on your investment.
As for me I have found that I cannot do that even with my own authority using a good broker. I actually downsized and now only add trucks when I have a direct need for an existing customer.
The pie is too small. If you can eliminate the number of people that get a piece you might actually have some leftover for you the guy with the actual investment.
As with any investment you must balance your risk VS your reward. The higher the risk the more reward. Your idea is huge on risk with very little chance of reward.

Now for the good news if you and your friend actually have saved enough money to buy a truck or so then you are obviously a smart person that knows how to make good decisions. I would focus on how you could get into something with less parties involved.

Good luck

 

We are the last ones at the table as well as the ones with the highest exposure to risk and the most expensive machinery to complete the job.... In any other market, we would be taking the lions share of the pie but in Trucking... for some reason we are the low man on the totem pole. One day soon I forsee the freight surpassing the amount of available trucks and then we will see who gets the lions share....