Quote:
Originally Posted by Sonny Pruitt
Unlike others on this board I contend its not that easy to make money as an independant and a lot of people inflate their independant earnings to save face. Or keep up their image
Most of the people I know who took the plunge either went to Landstar or
eventually went back to leasing.
There may be 2 or 3 left out of 10 that I know
and thats over a couple of years
A lot of guys got destroyed over last winters lack of freight
The load boards are way too confusing and signing up with brokers is a royal pain
Especially when you don't have a clue who they are
If you are under the pressure of feeding your family and attempting living the life of a normal person car pmt,mortgage, landscaping, soccer,college, Macy's, Home Depot etc you would be crazy to attempt your own authority without years of experience and a book of tried and true brokers given by a mentor
This is an area of trucking where you either have little responsibility except for the stupid truck or your wife is the CEO of a fortune 500 company
I've seen them come and go
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So what seems to be the main thing that makes people fail or makes them go back to leasing on or to Landstar is lack of good paying freight. I was thinking of your post tonight while I was driving and I think, as stupid as this sounds or maybe naive, that when becoming an O/O too much emphasis is placed on the aspect of getting the truck. I mean what is the truck but a tool to carry the freight. The truck by itself does nothing but look pretty.
I haven't studied the truck industry but it seems like from the little I read, a lot of these big truck companies started out with a contract. I think I read Celadon had some contract I forget with what I think auto parts though could be wrong. LCT, now part of Gainey, started with a couple of trucks hauling flowers. Swift, well that guy was hauling his own stuff I think. But it seems like they had the freight before the truck while a lot of us get the truck before the freight.
This honestly is my dream. I'd love to haul my own stuff. Buy things by the truckload and deliver it. I know it's far fetched but what the hell. Actually I know a guy who has some land on a main road and we talked about buying a truckload of Christmas trees and setting them out on his lot during the season.
A few months ago, a relative by marriage came over to my house with a friend that was staying with them for a few days. Well lo and behold I get to talking with this girl and she works for a logistics company in Ecuador. They ship flowers over here and all over the world. I was working for a company at the time and it was one of the ones that were hauling some of their flowers out of Miami. I'd love to get some type of contract straight with people down there to haul flowers (actually they didn't contract with the trucking companies here the importers here did that) I don't know I started asking a lot of questions but I didn't want to be rude so I didn't get to ask as many as I'd have liked to.
Yet the guy I work with doesn't haul for shippers. He deals with the brokers. He doesn't want to deal with shippers as he says they don't pay. Yet GMAN advocates getting work straight from shippers so I'm trying to reconcile the two points of view.
Also, as this guy doesn't haul for shippers which seems to go against the getting the freight before the truck. This guy though is born and raised in this industry so has a better chance at dealing with the brokers.
Really another factor I guess is how far in does one want to go. What I mean by that is if you have one truck, low overhead and know what you are doing as far as picking loads, then I guess you can do well. However if you have 3 trucks with massive overhead well that changes things quite a bit. Or even if you have one truck with massive overhead and don't know what you are doing, well that's heading for trouble.
I hope it's clear what I'm trying to say, as I guess I'm trying to say too many things at once. There seems to be many variables at play here and there is not a one size answer for all. Just as one person can live well off of $50,000 while another would go into massive debt on the same salary.
Low overhead and good freight I guess that sums it up. Quite obvious really. Finding the good freight can take time so I guess if you get the truck first then one should be prepared to live lean for awhile. I guess if you can get through the lean times then the money will come. I'm sure GMAN wasn't getting the rates he's getting right out of the box. I mean he's get many years of experience.
One final thought, these checks come in kind of large. I mean in 3 weeks I've billed over $12,000. A lot of people get money and they are thinking "what can I buy". I think "what can I pay". Money management is key here.
Pepe I'm planning on doing a lot better than $1.30 to $1.50 out of Wisconsin. Last time I got $1.75 and the guy I'm working with got mad with his dispatcher for putting that on my truck. And to answer if I'm using Getloaded and Internet truck stop, you might have missed it in the beginning but I pay someone to load my truck. I do monitor Getloaded though and try and see what's where. I have little patience with slow internet though.
Oh by the way Sonny as for New England I don't think the guy I'm working with goes there. He said he has a $500 surcharge for going to New York which basically means he won't go. Not only the rates and tolls he mentioned that it tears up the truck up there. As for me I have no desire to go there anyway. With the company I was with I was so happy when they sent me to Mass. I mean you are always going to be nostalgic for where you are from. Well I get up there and it starts to snow and I've never driven a rig in snow before and it's freaking cold and I don't even own pants really as I live in Florida and that was it for me. I never ever need to see that place again.