Small Fleet Owner looking for good Carrier to lease onto

JB Hunt and Schneider making millions off a nickel a mile profit and 20,000 trucks and you want to compete with that?

 

That's about the sixe of it......he is in that spot of being too big yet too small......basically infering the same cost as a single operator except times the number of tractors he has yet too small to compete with the rates the megas run for and still turn a profit.

You might want to look up this fellow on here Big Bad Bill and pick his brain, maybe he has a solution for you. He is involved with the Fleet to Farm group whom I believe are an all O/O carrier. He is a very knowledgeable, well spoken person.

 

There is no company to lease to that will pay 2 bucks on all miles. Those who do are very small and have all the trucks they need.

 

In my opinion if you want to run a fleet then you need to go direct to a customer. Leasing on can work for a truck or two because you don't have a lot of overhead that will eat into your profits. But what you are doing is adding an extra middle man into the picture. There is the customer, the dispatcher at the company you lease onto, then you to dispatch your driver and finally your driver. The companies are set up to dispatch to the truck and have designed

The other issue I see is that you are power only. It means that your costs are lower and the companies are higher by using their trailers making it less likely for them to offer $2.00 or higher.

Your sales pitch is dedicated personal service. It can cost more but you work for them not the other way around. A lot of big companies will dictate the terms of when they haul which a lot of customers seem to put up with but really do not appreciate. That is how I got started. By providing on time/demand service. I work in cement and before they were having the other companies (split between 3 or 4 companies) show up a couple hours early or late quite often so they did not have space for the cement or sometimes had run out. This is what prompted them to go to dedicated, they have one person to talk to, that will provide them the product when they ask for it. They know I don't work for anyone else so I wont get to them when I have time or capacity.

 

Sunco Carriers out of Lakeland, FL is all O/O with several different fleets. I pulled for them in '04 andI never cleared less than $1800 after fuel, plates, insurance and support. My highest settlement was $2700 with most around $2100. No touch refrigerated. I worked out of Oswego, IL and stayed between Green Bay, Cincinnati and Detroit. Wishing you the best in your search.

 

Can I ask you a question ? If you are willing to lease your trucks on for $2.00/mile, and assuming you pay your drivers 25% or so. Does that mean you would be happy to get $1.50/mile for your trucks and pay maintainence and fuel out of that ?

Maybe there is other ways to get $1.50/mile on your trucks and not have to deal with keeping drivers in them ? What kind of trucks do you have ?