No experience but getting Authority

From what the agent told me Texas is one of the states that they are testing the no range limit. I am assuming this is why she qouted me what she did. The insurance qoute was 13k per year so i am deffinently having to pay higher premiums which i expected (when calculated insurance into cost I was estimating 2-3k/month) As far as the equipment I have figured with my CPM that if i can get a truck that will last 100k miles without any major things going wrong with it, I will have saved the money in that amount of time to get a better truck and will either get rid of the first one or just have it fixed as a backup. The fleet plan is about 5Yrs out if it happens at all this would allow me ample time to build buisness connections and not have to double broker loads for my driver. I know the position is alot more than driving and have been researching into the industry for about 3 months and looking over the industry for about 6. I am a pretty fast learner and can teach myself just about anything fairly quickly (taught myself to drive a standard in a car in a little less than an hour). As far as keeping the equipment close to home I plan to stay in the south and central parts of US and attempt to avoid mountains and snow so as to keep from putting to much of a strain on the truck. This should ensure I get that 100k miles i need to be 100% sure that I can get a good used truck from a dealer for cash and avoid truck payments thus keeping operating costs down.

Thank you for all the information though any little bit helps.

P.S. On a side note thank you for providing honest information and not just saying that I will never make it.

 

First and foremost; Red, congratulations on your so far successful venture. I have been lurking on these forums doing my due diligence and have seen several hundred "new o/o drivers". You are the only success story I have come across. I am sure that you are proud of your success, as you should be, but I find it sobering that only .5% of these new ventures pan out.

I am considering following in your footsteps, following your success step by step albeit on a more protracted timeline. I have set my goal of buying a truck two years from now after all of my personal debt is paid off. First step is getting a CDL, which I can do now, and building some experience teaming with friends.

Yourself, BigBill, and G/Man have provided a most useful thread filled with wisdom, wit and uncommon "common sense". I salute you.

Kudos to you for your calm thinking and measured response in the landscaping incident. Keep the posts coming.

 

Thanks Capt. I wouldn't say it's a total success yet as there's been some substantial (and costly) hurdles, largely due to lack of first hand experience in the industry. My own background, first as an auto mechanic for 10 years followed by 15 years in business, has so far helped me avoid anything catastrophic. If I was any less prepared I'd be out of business by now. So here's an update, as I've been less than diligent with these lately.

I think we passed a major milestone last week with lessons learned. It was like an NTSB analysis of a plane crash, without the crash. I will not share the sordid details on this forum, but here's a summary.

A random DOT check in Western PA resulted in some HOS tickets and 10 hours OOS for my son, due to his not keeping the logs current then screwing up when updating them under pressure. That led to a chain of screwups (nothing unsafe or dangerous to the public - solely delays/business impact) the resulted in about a week of being parked. We got that behind us and proceeded to get jammed up chasing cheap freight in the midwest. The two weeks of punishment finally ended with me making the call last Friday to DH back to ATL from Detroit to get a fresh start and back in paying lanes.

I came --><-- this close to either selling the truck and closing the doors, or parking it for a few weeks to find another driver. It wasn't a lack of money issue. I had to have a heart to heart with my son to gauge his dedication to making this business work. He let one minor mishap lead to several more that resulted in a totally unacceptable outcome. I've mentioned before that it's been a challenge to get him thinking like a businessman versus a steering wheel holder. When we talked last Friday we covered a lot of ground, above and beyond the logbook talk. Bottom line is: we're going to run this as a responsible, safe, and profitable venture or I will shut it down.

While the truck was parked in Detroit, I took advantage and got the PM done while he was posted there. On Sunday, I went over to the truck and did some minor repairs to the trailer, re-fastening some of the chute clips, tightening up the bulkhead cover (over the interior part of the reefer where forklift jockeys like to ram freight in front). Overall, just giving the whole rig a look-over to catch any loose ends that need attention.

So. This week we're back to making money. The route is a little weird due to the upcoming holiday and working to route back to home. But it's working. He's rolled out Monday and so far set to run a full logbook thru tomorrow morning, until I get the next load locked in. I'm getting a better, less sloppy interaction with my son which is paying off in better load scheduling. After the holiday, he will be back to staying out for a couple weeks and load scheduling will be a little easier for me.

Today I made the run down to renew the IRP. As luck would have it, our registration back in March was prorated due to our company name alphabetically expiring in May. The good news was that the county let us pay both prorated 2011 and 2012 taxes at once the last time, so that was done. The only additional thing I had to do at the IRP office today that wasn't done in advance, was fill out an MCS-150 (update) and print an insurance certificate (although the worksheet said declaration page was ok, it actually wasn't). Wrote the check for a shade under $1,300 and walked out with a shiny new cab card. All in one visit, amazingly. Now a little bit of breathing room before the IRS comes calling for the 2290 tax.

For you geeks in the audience, I've gotten Eclipse logs to run on my Macbook Air. It's not easy or cheap (to do it my way) and I tried some different options. I wanted to establish whether I can run the business from the road using that or if I would need to haul a heftier, less durable laptop to do it. The Air will get-r-done. I'll be installing Eclipse on my son's laptop and moving him to electronic logs this weekend. Thanks Bill for the input. Electronic logs will be an important part of tightening up compliance process and readiness, as well as addressing the HOS violations that will certainly be noted when we get our audit.

Last, but not least, I've made another big move today. I will be resigning from my day job and devoting full time to the carrier operation. There's a lot that went into that decision - it wasn't just about me thinking I can get rich in trucking, in fact far from it. I've been long winded enough so here's the short version. Running this business and doing a full time project management job has exceeded my personal stress limits. I'm burning out. Second, the day job has been going in a bad direction and I'd be quitting anyway even if the trucking business weren't in play. I've seen enough in the past 2.5 months to know that this trucking business is something that will work, just not as a part-time venture. The short term plan is to get the business tightened up to be prepared for the new entrant audit and get my ducks in a row to grow it.

 

Wow!

You must be pretty confident to up and go full time on it. Congratulations! BTW, you ever consider adopting a 46 year old son?

 

Have you considered being a broker once things calm down? It seems to me if you are going to stay home based to manage your buisness, you may as well start hacking away at the middle man and throwing a few bones to friends.

 

Jarhed: Thanks. Just making a decision and taking action has dialed my stress level down a great deal. In one way, working in corporate I/T is like some of the stories I see from lease operators on here. The large companies wrongly think that everyone believes the company is doing them a favor by letting them work there. But you reach a certain point in your profession where you realize you create your own value, not the company. And that the only person in the world concerned about your happiness is you. So if you don't like what you're doing, change something or quitcherbitchin. I decided to do something. The first time I ever did that it was the scariest thing I've ever done. After that one, you realize the world didn't end and for better or worse you nearly always gain something out of it.

There will be no adoptions, but when I do hire another driver I'll offer a lot of the same consideration. Meet me halfway and I'll do the same. Simple as that.

Capt: Maybe, maybe not. I can do sales but I don't like it. I'll probably go the route I've seen many others do and pick up a few direct contacts but mainly deal with brokered stuff. Don't get me wrong, I'm not gonna pass on a good deal. I am just not good at being a salesman. I've got more of an operational focus. I'll find some opportunities, but not the type to use a lot of shoe leather to seek them out. Or maybe I'll learn to like doing that LOL.

So.. the next page in a run of trouble happened minutes after I posted that last update. After making a delivery near New Orleans and heading to Gulfport for another one, the truck started running a little rough and the check engine light came on. I did some over the phone diagnostics and figured it was a bad injector or wiring issue. The broker we were going to work for had made an exception on their 6 month in business policy and worked with me already to adjust the delivery time to fit HOS needs, so I decided to run the load to Memphis versus dropping it. I felt the risk of major damage was low (or already done) and the major issue on the load was just burning more fuel. He made the trip ok and went directly to the FL dealer in Memphis.

He got there too late for a same day diagnosis so I put him up in a hotel overnight Wed night. Thursday morning FL called and told me the engine harness was bad and could be back on the road mid-day Friday. I agreed with and approved the repair as there had been some other intermittent issues that a harness would cause. I made another hard call and elected to pay for my son to travel home and leave the truck there. I won't take a load without being 95% certain I can get it on time, and knowing there wouldn't be squat on the load boards Friday afternoon it was a done deal for the week and brought him in.

So we'll get back at it Tuesday morning. The good news is that the operation is still self-sustaining, even with an IRP renewal last week and an insurance payment hitting us next week, on top of all the other crap over the past couple weeks.

I guess a lot of people wouldn't share this much bad news out in public like this, but I have an agenda. Not that they'll read it, but there's someone new every day posting in here wondering if they have a chance with a given business plan. Thing is, everyone's personal business and needs are different. There is no way I could have planned for the last 3 weeks other than be prepared for the worst. It certainly wasn't the worst that could happen, but there was impact from two directions. Obviously cost is a factor when you pay for repairs, DH miles, etc. Less obvious is the opportunity cost, both the dollars you're not earning and with business decisions.

I could have dropped the Memphis load and got the truck into a dealer in Gulfport, then had enough week left to pick up a paying load back home. However, after getting that broker to jump thru hoops with his safety guy to get me approved, I wasn't about to drop it. Had the truck been over-fueling or unsafe to move, I'd have rented a truck to make the run at a total loss to keep my business reputation intact.

 

I think you made a good call on getting the load delivered, RedForeman. A few years ago I had a driver who blew a turbo. We had been mostly running for one company for a while and had booked a couple of loads in advance. Rather than backing out of the loads I rented a truck for the driver so that he could complete our commitment. After the truck rental there wasn't much profit on the runs, but it was important to me that I complete my commitment. Neither the shipper or broker could believe that I would rent a truck to do those runs rather than cancel the loads. It built a lot of goodwill. I guarantee you that if they had loads and I had a truck in the area that I would have a load.

You cannot start out on a shoestring with poor credit and be able to rent a truck. I think that it cost me about $800 to rent a truck for the week. I had to have good credit and the ability to pay for the rental when the truck was turned in to the rental company.

There are few carriers who are willing to really provide good service. It is one way the small carrier can stand out from the crowd.

Like you, one reason that I post on this and a couple of other forums is to help those starting out. Some will listen. Others will ignore the advice. It may help someone starting out when you post some of your tribulations as you build your business.

 

THIS!! ^^^^

I've done IT (on a help desk), then climbed in the executive level. I'd rather put a gun in my mouth than go back into the corporate world. I've run several small businesses, a few of them into the ground, and some did very well with one being sold. NONE of it was easy, and several were started with little, if any capital (huge mistake, trust me). I'm currently an Insurance Broker. Wasn't too hard to do, but keeping it up is not easy. PLENTY of money in this field, but I will be back in a truck at some point. Can't help it. It's an addiction now and it will follow me to the grave.

Kewl! Just kidding, but you have a calm professional way about you (at least the way you post) that makes me realize your son is very lucky.

 

Alot of good information in this thread..

 

Fantastic info.

Been trying to lease on an older tractor (25+ years old) in the eastern Pennsylvania area with a carrier who understands what I'm trying to do.

Very similar to RedForeman, I have a full-time gig that takes care of the bills and bennies, and want to get the tractor out there making money. I have explained the situation to several carriers (mostly smaller fleets) and they either don't want equipment as old as mine, want to dictate when/how often I work (unable to with the other gig), or they have unfavorable terms regarding percentage/per mile rate.

I don't hold it against any of them; they are free to run their businesses any way they want to. It just means that I have to pull the trigger and get my authority.

My girlfriend's father has been an OTR driver for 40 years, so I have a mentor to help out with a lot of the hurdles. Some things you just have to learn on your own - that's trucking.

I want to thank those who have contributed to this thread, especially RedForeman, for the time and effort that has been expended to help guys like me. I have been waiting 2+ years to pull the trigger on this - incessantly researching, building a business plan, setting up an LLC, and laying the ground work...I think it's time to call OOIDA's Business Services Department and get the authority rolling.

It's time to get that K100 out and rolling across the countryside...so that other drivers can point and say, "I wish I was THAT guy!"

Thanks again, and RedForeman...if I ever wind up down towards Atlanta, whether in the truck or my primary gig, I'll buy you lunch or dinner...this thread has definitely been worth it!