Main Reasons for High Initial Failure Rates

I see far too many newbies jumping into being a new business start up, that have champagne taste, and a water budget. For those who don't understand what I meant there, they don't buy a decent used to truck to learn how to run a business with. Or even a new truck that is very basic, but can get the job done well.
No, they want a truck that is a show truck, more than a go truck. Fanciest of everything on it, a sleeper that could house an African village full of people, and on top of this expense, they now have a ridiculously heavy truck, that can't haul as much net weight. Thst net weight is what makes you the money. Their payments go sky high to buy this truck, their insurance costs more than a cheaper truck, and it generates less revenue. At least its pretty for the repo man when he hauls it away.
If you need a sleeper, get a 38 to 40 incher, less bling on the truck, stop ticking off the options on the order sheet.

 

Everything you touch in trucking costs so much per mile. If you haul above your break even, you are actually making money.

Another vector of problems some do create for themselves is spending everything that does not go to pay bills. If the 18 wheeler threw a rod through the block you don't have enough for a new one or a replacement vehicle. And then you are out of business.

Happy times over. Now it's rice and bean time.

 

Ha. Indeed.

 

Truer words were never spoken!

 

Early 80's I worked for a small tank carrier involved with Iso Containers. We had a bunch of 'old hands' who were actively being courted by another carrier who cleaned at our place while building their own.

In comes an owner operator, heavy polish accent but good credentials.

When some of the others were hiding, he always came up to the window, "well what have you got?" Here, go load this for tomorrow...

"Okie dokie" and off he went. within 6 months he was the highest earning owner operator. Never questioned a load or turned one back and never complained, all the way to the bank....

 

Always love it when some ####### comes along thinking that the people working for them should work like slaves to benefit the owner. If you want me to work 70 hours a week for you then you need to be paying me better than average. Drivers aren't your personal slaves you know. If your pay is average or below expect your drivers' output to be average or below. Simple as that.

 

Bring on the fireworks!

 

I always love it when someone who doesn’t know their ### from a hole in the ground comes along and makes an ignorant comment.

You have NO idea how my pay structure is setup and anyone here that does, knows it’s very much above average.

Find out what’s going on next time before you open your mouth.

 

Was it Dale Carnegie that said " Failing to plan is planning to fail" ? It'd more then likely be in that high 90s % that will fail to make it past 1 year of business due to not doing a proper due diligence and not having the cash base to keep the company afloat.

 

main reason for me are two critical. almost same. about six of one or half dozen of the other:
1: you don't treat it like a business
a. proper business principles tell you do you own a truck it's a business you need to run it like a business not like a glorified company driver with a fast truck and if you want adding all kinds of bells and whistles right off the bat..
b. you start earning income more than what you've ever had before where it said of taking home checks are almost doubled if you're doing it the regular way. at least purchase way so you went down to the bank with your loan and let's say you want to landstar or Mercer or wherever you ended up at.. the cash flow comes in quick and fast but you still don't treat it like a business and next thing you know big repairs come up fast.. what ends up happening?
c. you waste all your money right off the bed I'm getting all kinds of fun stuff for you the wife and the kids big money coming in. you put a down payment on a house a boat a new pickup car.
next thing you know oh no this truck is going to need steer tires soon, Oh no the AC just went out,
oh man there goes to doser on the DEF unit which brings us to the real main reason
2. you don't have a maintenance account set up for yourself and you do not know your cost per mile...
3. Uncle Sam
not paying your quarterly estimates figuring how much you owe per quarter... not having money to pay your 2290 heavy Haul use tax it's a many many in trouble. it's like cost per mile if you don't know how much you need to take out each settlement to put on the side for taxes get yourself an accountant to take care of that for.
I've recommended and still recommend American Truck business Services started by Todd Amen back in the early 2000s late 90s?? they been around over 20 years or extremely adapt and helping you run your business also..
the nice thing about using a truck accountant is he'll tell you how much you need to put on the side nowadays do you also have to have health insurance you must pay for that too..
show again the main thing the bottom line it comes down to TREATING IT LIKE A BUSINESS!!
CPM is the biggest
if you don't know how to figure out your cost per mile and if you have an older truck of about three or four years you should know nowadays you are going to be looking at a dose or unit out the door that's about two grand a seized about two grand steer tires could run you close to if you don't do the Caps about 3800..
just because you put the down payment it bought a truck if you did not save up to have at least $5,000 of operating funds and using it strictly for operating funds and maintenance putting it on the side replacing it when it's gone you will probably fail.
not knowing how much it cost to run your truck is probably one of the biggest mistakes do owner operators make and don't even attempt to find out..
that's why so many fail within their first year they either get the truck repoed cuz they don't have enough money for the truck payment because they pissed away the money on other nonsense and toys or they hauled cheap freight they got burned continue to get burned and there's nothing you can do about it because you put the truck out with the wrong place..
but I don't know it boils down to simply as I said the main thing not knowing your cost per mile not having enough money to run the truck and not knowing the expenses of running a truck.
just cuz you can't afford a down payment on the truck and get financed on the truck doesn't mean you know what you're doing you look at all these repos it go on and you realize the reason why
you have to work for what you want. basically what that means is you start out with Saya basically fleet cascadia or a 389 Pete or whatever couple years old you don't put a bunch of chicken lights and chrome and Tack it all out with fancy everything you start with a basic truck you learn how to run that basic truck you pay the basic truck off you gain experience with your first truck.
that down the line you can get that nicer truck and keep on upgrading if you want
that's just my stupid opinion