We just finished a great seminar in Kansas City, MO April 30th, May 1st and 2nd. The CMC or Certified Master Contractor seminar put on by ATBS and Kevin Rutherford really covered many areas of trucking education from specing a truck to your retirement.
The first day we spent the afternoon at Arrow Truck sales learning how to spec a used truck and also a new truck. Ideas on how to negotiate and also how to set the stage to your advantage when talking to an salesman. A few of the tips were to dress appropriately and to present the salesmen with a business card. The day flew by and it was 6:00 before we knew it.
The next day we started at 8:00 in the morning with equipment financing, insurance, and return on investment with many tips and tricks to help your bottom line. One of the ideas was to keep your insurance on the truck updated to the true market value. We learned about different ways to finance your truck, and the importance of really taking care of your credit score. We also spent a lot of time learning about how to get better fuel mileage. A couple of the interesting tips we picked up is that a bug shield can cost you over 1000.00 a year in wasted fuel, having a sun visor can cost you 3/10th of a mpg, and a really poor road surface is also hard on your mpg. We spent some time on paying taxes, estimated taxes and record keeping.
The last day was very intense with information on getting your own authority and the risks involved, how to calculate your cost per mile, and the importance of a profit and loss statement, also some tips on what to do if you are audited by the IRS. We learned some quick and easy tips on file systems and why it is easier to set up an filing system using a schedule C as a guide. We went over different ideas on how to control our costs, how much idling really costs us, and tips on getting the most for your money on maintenance issues. We also discussed different ideas on retirement and how consumer debt affects us.
This class was for owner/operators and potential owner/operators and included all type of trucks and load types. We had 75 people in the class and felt as if Kevin Rutherford did a great job of tailoring the class to meet each attendee’s needs. We feel as if part of the key to being successful in our future is keeping ourselves educated. We also had the pleasure of getting to have Kraig, better know as Broompilot for company on two of the days.
The first day we spent the afternoon at Arrow Truck sales learning how to spec a used truck and also a new truck. Ideas on how to negotiate and also how to set the stage to your advantage when talking to an salesman. A few of the tips were to dress appropriately and to present the salesmen with a business card. The day flew by and it was 6:00 before we knew it.
The next day we started at 8:00 in the morning with equipment financing, insurance, and return on investment with many tips and tricks to help your bottom line. One of the ideas was to keep your insurance on the truck updated to the true market value. We learned about different ways to finance your truck, and the importance of really taking care of your credit score. We also spent a lot of time learning about how to get better fuel mileage. A couple of the interesting tips we picked up is that a bug shield can cost you over 1000.00 a year in wasted fuel, having a sun visor can cost you 3/10th of a mpg, and a really poor road surface is also hard on your mpg. We spent some time on paying taxes, estimated taxes and record keeping.
The last day was very intense with information on getting your own authority and the risks involved, how to calculate your cost per mile, and the importance of a profit and loss statement, also some tips on what to do if you are audited by the IRS. We learned some quick and easy tips on file systems and why it is easier to set up an filing system using a schedule C as a guide. We went over different ideas on how to control our costs, how much idling really costs us, and tips on getting the most for your money on maintenance issues. We also discussed different ideas on retirement and how consumer debt affects us.
This class was for owner/operators and potential owner/operators and included all type of trucks and load types. We had 75 people in the class and felt as if Kevin Rutherford did a great job of tailoring the class to meet each attendee’s needs. We feel as if part of the key to being successful in our future is keeping ourselves educated. We also had the pleasure of getting to have Kraig, better know as Broompilot for company on two of the days.
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Before we ever consider purchasing our own truck, that is a course we WILL take. Thank you for sharing some of the information that was presented.