My Start at O/O

OK. I am going to tell you what will happent to you out there because you seem to be missing the point. I started my business 2 years ago with the same ambitions as you. I now have 4 trucks. 3 I own and 1 is leased on to me. I run my own authority as well. First off, the truck you are looking at is way too much for a start-up. That is the kind of thing you buy when you are running a dedicated run and know what your income is going to be within reason. That truck is going to cost you about 160K with that sleeper. 19K for insurance is close and you can lose the bobtail as when you insure yourself for your own authority, there is no such thing as bobtail, only when you are leased to a company. Second, now this is from hard earned experience, your mileage figure is too high. Industry average is only 1700 miles per week. The simple fact of the matter is there are way more available trucks than there is available freight. This means it is a shippers market and the freight pay sucks. You say you will be eating in your truck, well I had that same wonderful idea too BUT it doesnt happen. When you are out there alone (now that you wised up to leaving the wife and kid at home) you will get lonely and you will get tired. When this happens it is human nature to socialize and get fast food (ex. truck stop food) vs. cooking something. Your idea of the 70hr in 8 days is all well in theory but it is a far cry from reality. I run hard when I can and as of late there has not been enough freight to do that, not for me or anybody else. You keep basing this on your experience working for someone who had a contract or shipped there own product......hellooooo there is a big difference in our world. We have too many vultures running for fuel and very little pay, not enough to make a payment or insurance, just enough to fill the tank and buy a meal... this is the real world of OTR trucking. Do yourself a huge favor and go work for one of the big companies. Cut your teeth and use the experience to learn before you undertake such an expense. You are stacking the deck against you and the house is cruel. You are planning to get a loan for 300K... I have over 500K invested in my company and have planned to not see a single penny of return on the initial investment for at least 2 more years. These are hard truths and facts. If you somehow manage to get a loan, (which when you say the magic word of trucking, they pull out a whole different criterea for approval) you then have to get approved for insurance. Having less than 2 years OTR experience, you will be hard pressed to get someone to bind you. I know this from experience. I had my license for 10 years, been on and off the road in between and I had to jump through hurtles to get my policy. Now that my business is established, this coming renewal my rates will start to drop. Bottom line is listen to what everyone is telling you, there is less than a 1% chance you will succeed factoring in your inexperience, the amount of debt you are taking on to start and the simple condition of the industry. Do your research and go work for another company. The education you will get will be priceless, and if you happen to decide it wasnt a good move, you will not be stressed because you can simply walk away. Running under your own authority and hoping to get a contract is going to be difficult. This is why I have expanded and am planning to take on more leased trucks. The simple matter is for a contract you will have to garuntee the amount of freight you can haul. That means if you agree to 6 loads a week, you better have the means of getting it done other than yourself. Those loads will take you out but they dont bring you back so then you have to open another business as a broker so you can sell the loads you cant cover. When you take a load to its destination, there is no garantee that you will find a load back to your origin..... there are a lot of factors. Loads going to FL pay OK but loads leaving FL suck. The last 3 loads my trucks went to FL on I ended up dead heading them to GA from Miami to find freight that payed better than fuel alone. You will have to become proficient with the load boards (which cost money to join) as well as needing instant all the time access to them so now you are talking a cellular modem ($60.00 a month) plus a laptop, a printer/scanner so you can fax and send your criteria to new customers, postage for your loads because you dont get paid until they have their documents etc. I can go on and on. You may be able to look at some load boards now and it would be a good investment to join for a month or 2 and look at some loads, call on them and see fo yourself what the rate is. You will be surprised at how many times you hear the words "already covered" or if something has been on there a while it is because it doesnt pay...... Its not easy in the OTR world today. Last refrigerated carrier magazine I read said current statistics that there are over 200,000 fewer trucks on the road this year than the last 2 years preceeding and we are still outnumbering the available freight 2 to 1..... these are not the times to start a new adventure being completely green.

 

Great post that just adds to what all the others are saying. Thanks for post.

 

Wow...just...wow. I seriously hope Xanix (who seems to have disappeared) goes and gets himself a CDL and a job as a company driver for 3-5 years (or more) before attempting anything like buying a truck and applying for authority.

I've been considering, in a few years, buying a truck and leasing it on with Crete, like jdrentzjr does (I'm currently a company driver for Crete, so I could do that...though they're not currently leasing O/O's that aren't current company drivers buying trucks and leasing them on)...

And there's NO WAY I'd go out there right now, borrow a bunch of money, buy a brand new rooster-cruiser and trailer, file for authority, apply for insurance, etc. etc. etc. and go looking for loads on a freakin' load board. Mainly because I would like to still be eating at least 1 meal a day 6 months from now. If I went the route Xanix is talking about, I'd count myself lucky to last 6 months before I started scrounging for meals in dumpsters behind McDonald's and carrying a sign around the truckstop parking lot that says "Will Work For Fuel".

 

The old blue collar world is dying (dead.)