Run on my own authority or go with big guys

**1dbrandt** · 03-09-2010, 10:40 AM

I recently bought a straight truck with a sleeper and I was going to hire on with a small company but felt the $1500 hold back and the 30% of the load was a little high on top of me paying for all the insurance and tags. Now I've taken the plunge and filed all the paper work for my own authority and I'm not sure I've made a wise choice.
Do any of the salty drivers have any advice for a bone head like me???
I live just outside of Chicago and wouldn't mind being gone for a couple of weeks like the big boys want, but I would rather have weekend home. Is there a happy place out there for me in the trucking world?

**chefdennis** · 03-09-2010, 11:04 AM

How big is your bank account? Can you afford for people to be late paying??? Not saying it happens all the time, but it happens more then one might think and from talking to people it is happening more often...like this guy:

http://www.expeditersonline.com/foru...-late-pay.html

as for being home on weekends, one a month works, more then that and you are limiting your ability to make money.....expediting takes you all over the country and sitting over a weekend is also now becoming the norm...and DH'ing home say from Tx or Neb. can get expensive each weekend....

**1dbrandt** · 03-09-2010, 11:18 AM

Thanks for your input Dennis

**Darmstadter** · 03-09-2010, 05:00 PM

You also have some shippers that don't want to deal with a carrier unless they have a minimum # of trucks or that you have had your authority for over a year, etc. Like Dennis said, it can take some deep pockets to make it work.

**cheri1122** · 03-09-2010, 06:13 PM

Do you have a plan for finding loads, while also being the O/O and handling all the paperwork involved?

**Turtle** · 03-09-2010, 08:29 PM

Originally Posted by 1dbrandt

I recently bought a straight truck with a sleeper and I was going to hire on with a small company but felt the $1500 hold back and the 30% of the load was a little high on top of me paying for all the insurance and tags.

If you understood the industry well enough to buy a straight truck, then you would have understood, utterly, why the need for the $1500 hold back and that a 30% fee for finding the load, dealing with the brokers and getting paid for the loads, the hassles of insurance and the DOT, etc., isn't too much.

Now I've taken the plunge and filed all the paper work for my own authority and I'm not sure I've made a wise choice.

I am.

Do any of the salty drivers have any advice for a bone head like me???

Before you decide to swim the English Channel, learn to swim.

You've got your own authority, but you don't know how to get freight. You wont' find expedited freight on truck stop bid boards. Most expedited freight are on close bid boards, with most of it anymore being done with targeted e-mail offers and bidding, or direct phone calls. Even those with their own authority who know how to get freight, often spend every waking moment in which they are not driving, looking for freight or trying to get paid for freight they've already delivered (or they have someone back at the house doing it for them, in lieu of a regular full-time job). Most who have their own authority and are successful were leased on to a carrier for years before making the jump.

I live just outside of Chicago and wouldn't mind being gone for a couple of weeks like the big boys want, but I would rather have weekend home. Is there a happy place out there for me in the trucking world?

In the trucking world? Yes. In expediting? Probably not. If you like burning up the Illinois Toll Roads between O'Hare all points within a 50 miles radius, you're golden. Shippers will love you. Not enough to pay you anything worthwhile, but they'll love you just the same. Expediting can and will take you everywhere, anywhere in the lower 48 at any given time. You get a load offer from Detroit to San Diego, or Laredo, or Atlanta, and it's Wednesday afternoon, you gonna give that up to be home on the weekend? Not if you have a truck payment that needs to be made.

Like Dennis said, those who go home a lot on the weekends miss out on a lot of revenue potential. When you go home on a Friday, you miss out on countless load opportunities for Friday afternoon, evening and on Saturday. You also miss the first loads out on Monday, so it could be Tuesday before you get your first load. You end up working about 3 days a week, and that's if you are actually loaded all three of those days. In order to make it work in expediting, most people will need to be out for three weeks at a time, minimum. There are exceptions, of course, but not many. Most will simply stay out until they happen to get a load that takes them close to home, and then will stay there for a week or so. Those who plan, and execute the plan, to be home every weekend, seem to last a few months at most. Then they wonder why they can't make enough money to stay in business. Others only make actual plans to be home for very specific things, like Christmas, or a dentist or doctor appointment, and everything else is played by ear.

One thing out here that will kill you sure as dead is chronic unpaid headhead, like the kind you do to go home from more than about 150 miles away, just to gome home for the sake of going home. If you need, really need, to be home more than a couple of days a month, then you're better off doing local courier work, which pays even less than expediting does if you go home alot.

If you've bought that truck, and don't already know for sure how you're going to be regularly loaded, then you're best bet by far is to lease your truck onto a carrier, and then go where the freight takes you, getting home when you can.

**Dakota** · 03-10-2010, 01:04 AM

Originally Posted by Turtle

One thing out here that will kill you sure as dead is chronic unpaid headhead

Stay away from Chronic Headhead

**fastrod** · 03-10-2010, 03:56 AM

Well your off to a good start. You need to look for a factoring service to get your money quickly. You can work directly with shippers or brokers but brokers may be the best way to get started. If you want to be home on weekends try running a couple of ltls each way between chicago and jersey/philly area. 2 or 3 round trips a week might may you enough money to be happy. If you run true expedite you should make enough to deadhead home after every run if you want. That is what I do. I run a van with my own authority, deadhead home after every run and then look for another load.

**Turtle** · 03-10-2010, 05:48 AM

Originally Posted by Dakota

Stay away from Chronic Headhead

I need to fire my proofreader. He's an idiot.

**guido4475** · 03-10-2010, 08:46 AM

Originally Posted by fastrod

Well your off to a good start. You need to look for a factoring service to get your money quickly. You can work directly with shippers or brokers but brokers may be the best way to get started. If you want to be home on weekends try running a couple of ltls each way between chicago and jersey/philly area. 2 or 3 round trips a week might may you enough money to be happy. If you run true expedite you should make enough to deadhead home after every run if you want. That is what I do. I run a van with my own authority, deadhead home after every run and then look for another load.

But why run empty after each load? Turn those empty miles into profitable miles and utilize yourself even more, putting more money in your pocket in the long run.

**1dbrandt** · 03-10-2010, 10:07 AM

Originally Posted by Turtle

I need to fire my proofreader. He's an idiot.

I meant what you knew there Turtle. ha.

Thank you for all your info. You hit the nail on the head as for why I wasn't sure on the choice I made with my authority. Once I got started with all the paper work and started to look for loads and talking to brokers things have kinda fallen apart.

**1dbrandt** · 03-10-2010, 10:20 AM

Thanks to all who responded you have been a wealth of knowledge to a newbee like me. I greatly appreciate all your time and effort here.

Be safe out on the road and God bless.

**fastrod** · 03-10-2010, 11:10 AM

Originally Posted by guido4475

But why run empty after each load? Turn those empty miles into profitable miles and utilize yourself even more, putting more money in your pocket in the long run.

The reason that I deadhead home after each run is that I only work with shippers within a 75 mile radius of my home. If I did set somewhere and look for a load back home whatever time I used might cost me a run from one of the shippers back home. That is why I find for my case it is best to deadhead home as quickly as possible.

**guido4475** · 03-10-2010, 11:29 AM

Originally Posted by fastrod

The reason that I deadhead home after each run is that I only work with shippers within a 75 mile radius of my home. If I did set somewhere and look for a load back home whatever time I used might cost me a run from one of the shippers back home. That is why I find for my case it is best to deadhead home as quickly as possible.

So basically youre working for free half of the timeyoure working..Van or not, when it is moving, every effort should be made to keep it loaded.The one-way freight mentality is a sure recipe for financial disaster.

**Dakota** · 03-10-2010, 11:34 AM

Originally Posted by guido4475

So basically youre working for free half of the timeyoure working..Van or not, when it is moving, every effort should be made to keep it loaded.The one-way freight mentality is a sure recipe for financial disaster.

That is why I stopped running hotshots for Ceva, it was all one way and I can't afford to run my truck for half pay