Reality of my logic

As for market timing, my belief is it is a very bad time to start a keep up with the joneses trucking company.. Meaning a new guy who thinks he will pay for an almost new 2018 DEF/ELD truck on load boards with a new MC and sky high year 1 insurance plus fmcsa audit and so forth. The odds are against you.


It is however a fantastic time to be saving up, overhauling a low cost paperlog project truck as one can afford it, meeting local MC numbers you can lease under and asking all around to background check those folks youre considering. It takes time to get word of mouth info on people. And also, time to find a dedicated shipper small enough that you can serve well when you pull the trigger.

The number of companies that start underperforming on their overcommitments is going to steadily increase as rates decline and competition gets fiercer. Patchy carrier performance will open up opportunities for you. The timing is right when you have a good affordable truck ready to go, a small, honest, experienced MC you can grow with, and one good dedicated down the street shipper ready to enter a freight contract with you at an above spot market rate. That gives you a stable lane to run from home to point B every week. This defined point B makes it easier for you to get a routine handful of backhauls developed and if youre a flatbed.. To have hauls that match your gear. Gear is heavy and expensive and takes a ton of boxes to store it, plus the securement experience to actually be legit on every load.

If you run the same lane often youll learn the most efficient places to fuel, to sleep, eat, get parts, the traffic patterns, the gridlock go-arounds. Everything will be easier and itll free up your mental capacity vs constantly having to trust GPS and chase loadboard junk with a surprise issue at every other shipper to deal with. And a constant, constant flurry of phone calls from brokers while you are actually needing that mental capacity to drive. The less load board you NEED the easier it will become. Carrier packets and chasing down payments will consume a lot of time if youre constantly going with another new load. Some have deadlines and other tricks to shaft you out of some or all of the money and its a lot of fine print and logging into new crap to get paid.


I would highly recommend wading into owner operator under a veteran MC to learn the ropes atleast a few months, rather than jumping into OO and MC at the same time. It takes a very disciplined person to manage the driving, load finding, finances and compliances all at once. I could not do it. And what other life could you even have with that sized workload? There arent enough hours in the day.

 

The MC i am developing a relationship with right now just told me yesterday that they recently hauled a load and paid the driver, but the shipper threw away a blank page 3 of the load paperwork. So the driver got pages 1of 3 and 2 of 3 where all the info was.. But because the blank page 3 no longer exists the broker is refusing to pay. $1400 driver pay plus time and fuel, gone.

These are the challenges that are hard to be prepared for.

 

well it is simple, you can't make a projection of viability of a new business without first determining if the costs of running the business is going to be met. It is a common mistake to stake an ancillary need within the budget and then not being able to maintain the business first as needed. Too many will sacrifice business needs to meet personal needs and this is where it comes to a point what ever they do, they fail.

I've seen this maybe a few HUNDRED times when I am looking at small fleets to buy, it may be the second most common to see after under capitalization being number one.

Wait .. I thought you were an experienced owner?

As for the broker not paying, I would either file against his bond or sue him. Even if the contract specifies the three pages, the job is complete and the BOL is legal/signed.

 

I would file on their bond and they can take it from there.

 

Re: experienced owner. Yes and no.

I guess i am a shade of gray there. I have said many times i am a new CDL. I started "trucking" my own heavy equipment and industrial property on my own 2ton truck and trailer across the country in 2015 and have lived thru northern winters in a sleeper, have been out of service, towed, charged, and majorly broken many times, all out of pocket with no income from the truck to help, and no income from the shop being split between two regions. My 401k got used up in trying to relocate. I have had a few small businesses, but nothing to brag about.

My commercial driving "career" is 6 months old. 1 month of running another mans truck as my own successfully. 3 years of on and off research prior to getting my cdl where i considered starting a trucking company to complete my move, but decided it was too much to learn at once, and too much risk at that time.

So i know a bit, have experienced the bulk of the bad stuff, but surely not all. I aim NOT to experience all the bad parts, blown motors and trannies is enough for me.

And i do appreciate your explanation on the personal expense. I think its a case of discipline, the person not being able to keep their personal life and business life independant. If you own a company that pays you a salary, youve got to make your personal life live within that salaried means. If your business cant afford to give your personal life a salary raise, you need to decline giving yourself one and keep the home on budget. Not pay for the kids braces with the trucks maintenance account.

 

Nothing wrong with asking, it's how you asked.

 

Personally I think mindset of the owner is probably as much of importance as anything else.
I had driven a truck for years, but mostly either local (construction type) or regional. I had never dealt with OTR except for a rare trip a few times, and never dealt with finding freight much. I jumped in with a big truck payment and a brand new MC in the spring of 99, underfunded as a person could possibly be.
6 months later the price of fuel went up rates crashed and OOs and even companies were dropping like flies. Massive repo yards sprung up all over the country, even my finance company that had been in the truck financing business for many years went belly up, basically overnight the value of my truck was 19% of what I owed on it, no possible way to sell out. I had no choice but to continue on and run through the cdown turn, or turn it in like many of the rest, which was not an option in my book.
A long time truck owner (small company ) told me back when I bought my first dump truck, to never look back at what I could be making working for someone else, during the hard times, or I would not make it. I took that to heart and I was sure tested. lol
There was a couple of times I did not have fuel money to make another load, and had to sit a day or so either waiting for some cash to come in or find a load to where ever from a broker that would abcvance once loaded.
If a guy does not consider failure an option, he can make it work one way or the other.
I had no other major bills other than the truck related bills, and family to feed, but if I had been the type to have a large house payment and a couple of car, boat , whatever payments, I could not have gotten through that downturn.

 

If we do my numbers then my "fixed" cost for 80k miles is $1.27 a mile. I kept the. Separate so I was never confused that of I stop running for a month that I have no expense to worry about. I did forget to add that I roughed in taxes and crap at 30% of net profit . Thanks for reminding me

 

I have heard mixed reviews on the Detroit 12s and n14. Options seems to be very polar. I will be hauling close to 80k when loaded. It's rare if I see a load under 30k on my deck. I'm leaning towards n14 at this time. Though

 

I settled on 1.75 for all miles to accommodate a freight drop.