Maybe I am being unrealistic.. you tell me

Discussion in 'Ask An Owner Operator' started by thiczle, Mar 3, 2019.

  1. Midwest Trucker

    Midwest Trucker Road Train Member

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    Finding a driver that is going to be the face of your company is not realistic. As Dino Soar said it may take you a while to find one and then he may be fired or quit a week or two later. You would be blown away at how many people act and their lack of regard for you. You will care much more about them then they do about you. There are some all stars out there and after enough hires you’ll find one. What I’ve learned is all stars are hard to find because they stay put where they are and are cherished by their carrier. You’ll be scraping bottom of the barrel for the most part so it’ll be tough for you unless you get lucky.

    I think it’s great you want to give everything to your driver that you would want. That’s a good mentality to have. Keep in mind that it’s also not entirely realistic. Your business is there to make money, and if you don’t make money then you’ll be out of business. What kind of great treatment would you consider that to be for your driver? Forget health insurance, not gonna happen. Forget retirement, you are not a big fleet, you are a 1 truck operation. You simply can’t afford this crap. This whole give everyone the world and I’ll worry about making money 3 yrs from now is bs. You will go under bud. Pay someone a #### good wage with a guarantee and let them buy their own Obamacare or be on their wife’s or is a veteran. Some guys don’t want to be home every night, find one of those. You will pull your hair out trying to run local just because you think that’s what a driver wants. Do something like .54/mi with 2400 miles guaranteed so $1300/wk and mileage after 2400 miles. Past that the rest is up to them.

    You never said where you live and the reason I ask is unless it’s NE then your toll cost is way way high.

    Wonder why there is a bunch of flats sitting around cheap? LOL think about it, it’s because somebody with big dreams owned it and got crushed. Consider maybe running a van instead. Finding a good flat bedder is going to be even hard of a needle in the hay stack. Get on load boards like DAT and start doing mock runs sort of like stock trading with fake money. It’ll still be not realistic because you’ll expect everything to go perfect and it doesn’t, but you’ll have a lot better idea.

    Truck wise buy a Kenworth T680 that has only had one owner and no more then 350k miles. Make sure it has a Cummins engine and buy their XT1 Encore 2nd owner warranty for 2 yrs 200k for just $4500. Trade it at 550k and you’ll know by then whether this venture is going to work or you’ll be long done by then anyway. Only get a 76 inch sleeper. I made the mistake of buying day cabs early on thinking I’m just intrastate it’s all I need. Well, needs and conditions change. A sleeper will give you max flexibility and if you get a sleeper a 76 inch is only one that makes sense that way it’s ready for regional or OTR work but still gets the local jobs done just fine.

    Lastly, I’m not saying you can’t own a fleet and not be a driver because you can. In fact many non drivers own excellent fleets and are very successful. However, if your serious about this you need things setup to where you make good money. This way you can afford to quit your job and play Mr backup driver for a while until you get a solid hand in there. Then if your profitable add a second truck so that you have enough scale to sustain things are home comfortably. Plan on doing all of the load booking, paperwork, billing, etc yourself from home why eagle eying what’s happening with your trucks hour to hour every day. If your wife is capable then get her involved with everything and dealing with all the Governments crap and hoops you have to constantly jump through. Get her going in quick books, doing payroll, etc because as you get bigger you’ll be able to prolong the length of time before having to hire someone and have an official office.

    Good luck.
     
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  3. Midwest Trucker

    Midwest Trucker Road Train Member

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    It’s not being pessimistic, it’s being realistic. I’ve had 30% of my fleet sitting without drivers at times. More time then I’d like to admit. Then your trying to advertise like crazy but still not many people are calling. You get 3 interviews lined up and 1 doesn’t show and the other two cant drive but your tempted to put the best one in there anyway because truck has to roll but you can’t because having a wrecked truck is worse then a sitting truck. Round and round yah go..
     
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  4. thiczle

    thiczle Bobtail Member

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    You guys give some really great eye opening advice.. i think my best bet for now is to sit on it until i am ready to drive it myself.. i am not willing to lose my life savings in a matter of months when it took me 20 yrs to make it.. thanks guys for saving me a rude awakening.
     
  5. chimbotano

    chimbotano Heavy Load Member

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    Before I started my business I found this site , and I’m so glad that I did. I learned a lot . As you can tell, here are guys that are willing to help genuinely and have the best intentions.
    You have not idea how much stress and headaches are being deflected from you by reading and following these people’s advise.
    This type of business is very , very sensitive.
     
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  6. Ridgeline

    Ridgeline Road Train Member

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    See right here, this is what a really bad problem with the plan.

    You listen to these one truck owners who have just ... well one truck and they listen to the lunch counter trucker bs threw the years to form an opinion.

    The age of the truck is the least issue, the care and feeding of the truck is primary issue. I don't trust Owner Operators who claim they kiss the truck and tuck it in at night as the same as I don't trust a sale dweeb who wants to make their commission. I have stressed this a lot, you need to do your due diligence and when you do there are two important things that you need to do - the first is negotiate the price down for the problems you find with the truck, that's a given and one HUGE reason why you have an independent person look at it carefully. The second and most important is that you need to be able to just ... well as Trump demonstrated with the NK little guy ... WALK AWAY. You can't make a deal with a demand from the seller on some fictional price that they think the truck is worth.

    NOW if you bought the truck and you got the deal you made because of all of that, then you commence with getting it road ready. If it needs brakes, put them on and do more than just throw shoes on them, put in the money for the s-cam bushings and so on, new cans and so on.

    See what I am getting at?

    The other thing that I can tell you won't work is a coffin sleeper. Please this is not 1979, they make bigger things and being stuck on the road with one is alright for someone every once in a while but hell it is a ******* when you are doing this for a week at a time. I ask my drivers what they want, I get it for them if I can, and they know they are the most important asset I have in the complete picture, bar none.

    SO learn how to take care of your driver, learn how to back your driver and learn how to mitigate issues before they get out of hand. Finding customers is easy, finding good reliable drivers is almost nearly impossible.
     
  7. chimbotano

    chimbotano Heavy Load Member

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    Everything was well said until you brought trump , but other than , in my opinion , you are absolutely right.
     
  8. Ridgeline

    Ridgeline Road Train Member

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    He is the best example I could think of. I know many hate the guy, I don't trust him and congress isn't doing their job (so no more politics now), but I would recommend reading his book - Art of the Deal. I've used some of the stuff in the book with good success.
     
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  9. chimbotano

    chimbotano Heavy Load Member

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    He doesn’t even know how to read and you honestly think he can write? Did you hear his speeches? And every one know that someelse wrote the book.
    Anyway let’s help each other on how to get better in this Industry.
     
  10. fordconvert

    fordconvert Light Load Member

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    If Trump were only as smart as you, how many more billion$$ would he have? I’m sure Melania can’t compete with your wife either?
     
  11. Ridgeline

    Ridgeline Road Train Member

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    Dude, I have to tell you and not to make this a political thread but not everyone can be president, it isn't a job for dummies.

    Now if he could not read or write, his chances would so small, it would have atoms floating around it.

    I neither defend him or bash him because this isn't the place for it, it was an example that was in the news and very very insightful to see he did indeed walked away as I and others have on bad deals.
     
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