To all the small fleet owners what was the hardest part of getting your company started and waht helped you a lot other than having lots of money stored for the process?

 

Finding the better paying freight and decent drivers.

 

#1- good drivers, they are scarce. What can you offer that the big fleets can't? Retirement, health insurance, vacation, a shiney truck?

 

Whether the company has one truck or ten thousand, the greatest challenge all trucking companies face is finding quality drivers.

 

Drivers are less harder to find now http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/...-surplus_N.htm

of course quality drivers is something else.

But to answer the original question, there is so much more to just getting a truck and then searching (or having the freight).

I only have 2 trucks and 2 drivers (though I am running a friends fleet so total of 18 ) but the amount of paperwork is never ending.

Seems like all this compliance stuff is never ending. Keeping up with annual inspections, drivers medical cards and seems like 1,000 other things. We are currently setting up a trucking dispatch software which we hope will help us keep track of things better.

Anyway that's my 2 cents for starting out; managing the paperwork. Cause with the phones blasting away all day it's hard to stay on top of things which if neglected can cost you big in the end.

 

So would hiring someone to help with all of that add fuel to the fire or could it possibly ease the situation?

 

Yes. Call Carrier Service at 305-652-9990. They handle all of it mostly for a reasonable price.

 

I don't know if anyone "starts" as a small fleet owner. We started with one truck, then two, then three, then four...

I guess what helped (besides cash reserves) what the availability of outbound freight.

-Find a client in your local area with regular shipments
-Figure how many trucks, trailers and drivers you need in order for you to be the only carrier they use.
-Figure what areas their shipments go to and whether or not your equipment will be able to reload in that area (i.e. flats delivering in FL might be tough).

That local shipper will like the idea that they have trucks located so close to them. Kinda like having their own fleet without the headaches. If you can supply them with trucks whenever they want....you might have something.

Ideally you're looking to deliver and get home in the same day so you can minimize the equipment you need to buy and drivers you need to find. Is there a shipper close to you that delivers ~5 loads a week within a 250 mile radius? Theoretically you could do that with one truck and one driver operating at ~100% capacity.

 

I hear you there. I drove under my own authority for 15 years and have been running the small fleet game for about a year and a half now. We've figured how to make these guys a damn good living but we are starving for drivers. Good drivers are the golden goose to us. Without them we fall. Ive tried ads in magazines, websites, made our own website, and at this point I'm even trying to advertise on forums without stepping on toes to get guys interested.