Please Describe What an Ideal Company Would Be Like...

Employee owned/stock options
Cents per mile or percentage of line haul/ or having both as an option
Pawn shop and massage parlor instead of/or with a gym
Load board [Schneider]
Allowing people to run under the company authority [Mag]
Rotating teams, 2-3 weeks on, 1-2 weeks off, or maybe 2 months/one month or whatever works

I'm trying to imagine what an employee owned mega carrier would be like. Something akin to unionizing, but instead just being employee owned and operated. Since there's such a huge "driver shortage" it seems like a good avenue to approach starting a company. Create a company that people would actually want to run for and stay with for life.
I've been picking up bits and pieces in different threads, copying down what seems useful. I like the idea of using a gas generator and a split a/c system instead of an apu in trucks. You could set up three trucks with them for what you'd pay for a single apu.
The Diesel Doctor thread was pretty good, getting trucks tuned and gauges installed. Things that spread out over a few trucks could really make a huge difference.
The goal is to eventually become the biggest hugest mega carrier on the planet, starting with one truck.
Owner Operator forum seemed like the best place to get serious info.
Thanks!

 

No three drivers can agree on ANYTHING from seatbelts to rates, now you want a few hundred of them trying to run a company. lol
Good luck with that.
An ideal company would be more like a broker, with no employees to have to deal with.

 

Driver shortage is BS!!!

But a perfect company would pay DPM... Not CPM. And only have very high dollar runs that were a minimum of 1500 miles one way. All drop and hooks, next load ready before you drop the previous.

 

One that treats you like a human, doesn’t lie to you, and pays fair market rate for your services

 

The company would go broke. Pay would be double and hours worked would be half.

 

Those are out there, like mine, but I still struggle to find good drivers in my market. The good drivers don’t move around much so it’s very difficult to reach them.

 

Ownership is through stock option. Every year worked the employee gets a percentage of stock in the company. Stocks pay a dividend based on profit, and when an employee quits or gets #### canned the company buys out their stock, giving them some cash in return.
It isn't a democracy or a hippie commune. Standard business structure, with a ceo, general manager, etc.

That's why I put driver shortage in quotes. Turnover isn't a shortage its a symptom.
DPM is distance per mile? Is this the same as House Hold Goods miles versus Actual? Because that's a good point. Gets into the brokerage side of things.
Drop and hook, sure, when possible. Serious management, juggling trailers. If the company is pulling a lot of trailers then it would likely be dependent on the customer and/or having drop yards around those customers.
Long runs again into the brokerage side of things. Same with having loads back to back available.
Brokerage is a different animal, I haven't gotten that far in my amazon "Trucking Company" start up guide (seriously).
When I think about brokerage I think about "Wolf of Wall Street" style boiler room full of sharks.

 

Whoa!

 

"We appreciate all that you do!" as you sit at a shipper for 4 hours, sending messages every 15 minutes to the night shift, because they gave you the wrong load #'s.
It's what prompted this idea. I started with just thinking about buying one of the certified used trucks from Ryder and then leasing on to a company, but figured why not look at the actual big picture problem and see what happens.

 

The best company I drove for was Plains Marketing. I showed up, I got my dispatch from my box, never had to call, email or message anyone for it. I saw my supervisor once a quarter at the safety meetings. Quarterly bonuses, great benefits, and I was left alone. Made 100k a year moving oil for 12 hours a day.