Calling MERRICK....
 

I'm reposting this from the other thread' cuz I'm dying to know how you're making out. I had high hopes for you a few months ago.

Christ Rank calling me out like that, remind me never to go out in public with you. :)

Anyway I do help dispatch all the trucks but mainly I was brought in to help with the money. This is the guy by the way, for whom I was running for before. The one who was dispatching me. He has a bunch of trucks but it was never really managed prooperly.

He pays me, but not really much. The obvious benefit to me is I am constantly looking for new work and instead of saying I can offer two or three trucks (if all goes well this week) I can offer 21.

I have set up an email that I send out daily to various people to let them know where the trucks are going to be. Like I said better to offer more capacity.

Actually I contacted one large super market chain a while back and they said they require 20 trucks. However that was during the fuel run-up and people were dropping like flies so they said as we are close that we could send over our info. When we recently hit 20 I contacted him again and he actually offered us a lane. We haven't decided on it yet as it might not fit our operation but nonetheless the oportunity was offered.

As for the numbers, I don't have everthing finalized. To be honest it's hard to keep up with. I have gone through numberous accountants but I keep firing them as they don't do things how I like. One thing that you already know is that there isn't a lot of money in this business. If one reads back to my earlier posts its amazing how naive I was and how little I knew when I got into this. (not that I know so much now, do we ever really stop learing anyway?)

Your comment that it would take 4-5 trucks to enable a guy stay home is missing one big part of what it takes for a guy to stay home, that is his expenses.

You could be making a million dollars a year but if your expense are more than a million dollars well you won't make it. (Of course you know all this but I'm just saying :) . )

Me personally, I live a simple life. Thus a lot of the changes that people are making are already how I live my life. I don't by flat screen tv's. I drive a 9 year old car that has been paid off for years. Material things do not make me happy.

It should be added however, that my wife has a good salary which covers our biggest expense, the mortgage (I admit I got caught up in the real estate frenzy down here in South Florida too). However she will be losing her job soon and we now have a baby on the way. So we will see.

Anyway as for the trucking, I don't take money out of the business. It runs itself. So I haven't needed to live off of it. I really think I can make this work though. Sometimes I think these business are more profitable then people claim, (talking on a larger scale of course). You can't live off of a few trucks. I started getting into my first repair bills and they weren't cheap. We now have an in-house mechanic though so this will save a lot.

It is true, the more trucks you get the cheaper everything else becomes. I see the kind of money this other guy is generating. If that were my company (and he claims he wants to sell it to me), I would be making some money as I would have nowhere near the expenses he has (Just car/boat payments alone which the company pays every month is about $3,000. I would not have those payments.

I would like to add some owner/operators but that will be in the future. There are so many changes going on now. Of course we have less freight, but one big thing is this credit problem. People are not going to be able to upgrade and get new equipment if the banks aren't lending. So I'm trying to decide how to progress.

Also as we obtain new customers, I do see there is a downside to that. There is something to be said for working off of the spot-market. The guy I work with always said he didn't want any contracts and now I see why. We actually got a good contract but that means you "have" to be there and we have to take freight cheaper than we'd like to have a truck where we are obligated to be.

I'd really like to be able to drop trailers but it is so hard to get new equipment now.

In the end, I guess I didn't answer your quesion Rank, I know and I'm sorry; as usual I digressed. Hope you are doing well though.

I know what you mean. When I was working for a small trucking company last year we had a pretty fat contract with a local shipper. Problem was, they expected us to be completely committed to them. But some weeks they would give 15 loads, others only 3 or 4.

So in the real busy weeks we often had to deadhead our trucks back home to cover another load. But in the slow weeks we were real reluctant to send our idle trucks out on spot market loads because our shipper could call at any time with a late add that we would have to cover. So it kept our hands tied all the time and in the end, our average rate per mile for all miles was not all that great, despite the fat rate we were getting on head hauls.

Since I've gone out on my own I have strictly used brokers and load boards and I am actually doing slightly better on the basis of average rate for all miles because it is a much more efficient way to put a trip together. I also like the independence.

On the other hand, that shipper is paying around $2.80 per mile right now. I'd love to get some of that gravy once in a while.

thanks for the update Merrick. I always kinda thought a guy could make ~10,000 profit per truck. I agree with what you and deep dixie are saying about the contracts. They expect alot.....and then they expect rate cuts after a while too.

It can be a real challenge to make things work with some shippers. Some are more flexible than others. I had one that I worked with and he could usually work around my schedule, but there were times when he had to find another truck. We had a more informal relationship than some. His shipments were rarely time sensitive and always paid well. My kind of shipper. :D

$10,000 seems about right but really you have to ask yourself if that's worth it. I mean I'm in now but a lot of stress in this business.

I'm real lucky with the two guys I have, of course it only takes on real screw up but so far they give me no problems at all.

But you get those early morning calls and your heart kind of jumps at what it could be. I think it was well worth the GPS tracking cause I can kindly correct any bad habits before they get out of hand or costly.

I am also now implementing tracking on the reefer temp to avoid mistakes with the temp that could cause claims. I get an email alert if the reefer goes out of range.

But it's not just the stress of what they are doing, a lot of it is I worry about the need to take care of these guys. I mean, it's not like if I can't get a load I just turn off the computer at 5:30 and leave it til the next day. I am fully aware that these are grown men that are out of their house and need to make a paycheck. I would take money out of my own pocket if I need to to make sure they make a decent paycheck. They know this and thankfully they seem to appreciate it and do a good job for me.

Interesting Deep Dixie about that contract that company had. Definitely shows it's not just so simple to run out and get "direct shippers". I will say this though, in this environment of low freight volumes, I definitely want any type of commitment to freight that we can get. Now isn't the time to be working off the spot market exclusively.

Hey GMAN, nice to see your still around. Last I knew you had hurt yourself again; I hope you are feeling better and doing well.

Thanks, merrick. I am still hanging around. It was a long healing process with my leg. The swelling is gone and you would never know by looking at it that the injury was so severe. Thanks for asking.



It sounds like you are doing well with the new job. I take it that it is a little more challenging than you first thought. The current economic environment certainly complicates things. I am sure you will work it out. The current conditions will separate the strong from the weak. Those who survive will be much better for the experience. Those who make it through the next year or so you should do pretty well as things improve. It is easy to prosper when the economy is good. It is a different story when things are not so good. I am glad you let us know how things are going for you. I hope you will keep us posted.

I'd like to hear more about this system. I know that Ulocate.com is a service that will track a GPS cell phone, but your deal is a little more elaborate right? It measures som eengine parameters also?

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