Leasing at Prime

No, don't let him do it. ESPECIALLY if there are kids involved. You have to feed the truck first in order to buy the groceries, and if there isn't anything left over after feeding the truck, the kids, mortgage, car payment, etc. are going to be very unhappy.

Start reading here...

http://www.thetruckersreport.com/tr...rime/182163-leasing-at-prime.html#post2670387

I started this thread so that folks with no clue about what's swimming in the deep end would find out a bit about what it takes to be successful at this BEFORE they jump into that ol' deep end. A year, preferably two on the company side. Enough money put away to cover your personal needs for a couple of months AND enough money to run your trucking business for a month in case the worst happens.

That's right... this isn't employment on steroids, and that settlement check is cashflow into a business. It's not your paycheck, and you can't blow it on stuff at the end of the week. Your PAYCHECK is what you decide to pay yourself as a salary... the rest has to go into the business.

The minuses? How about you loose everything, and owe Prime thousands because hubby has no clue how to make this work? 4 out of 5 new lease ops fail, most of them in the first year. That's the bottom line.

The pluses? It's great... beats the heck out of being an employee, and is very rewarding. If you have a clue about how this all works. Go company for a couple of years, then decide.

 

You get the same basic load info pages our company guys get, plus a breakdown of the revenue for the load. The total gross revenue for the load is the only important number on the revenue breakdown.

What to consider goes back to your book keeping, and tracking of your expenses. Knowing what the revenue you've earned to the point you're at in the week, what you need to generate per day to reach your target for the week are a couple of the considerations. Knowing your numbers is vital... how else can you judge whether a given load meets your needs or is something to flush?

I used to know a guy who claimed "he had a CPA to tell him what his numbers were." I asked him when that happened... he replied at tax time. So... this guy ran open loop all year long with no idea what his costs were. I asked him how did he know whether he was making or loosing money on a given load? He had no answer. You have to do your homework to know whether the revenue presented to you meets your needs in both a per-mile sense and a per-day sense.

 

The load planners find the best load they can for you, and send it to your FM. If you want something specific you work through your FM. No forced dispatch; if you reject a load you go to the bottom of the local empty queue.

It's better than most places... there is a system of incentives and fines that help keep the system relatively fair. If a FM doesn't work to keep all of his drivers in a reasonable gross revenue situation his own paycheck will suffer. That being said it's a partnership between you and your FM. It can affect your bottom line.

 

You're going to have to build your driver rating up to get onto the best boards. Hop on, deliver on time, no tickets, no accidents... you'll get there quickly.