CharlesD, I knew you were independent by reading your posts. My reply was not directed at you, it was directed at those that are leased to a carrier and can only haul freight for that carrier. When you do this you are dependent on that carrier for all your loads. If you are leased to say fedex and they have no loads for you you set, you can not call say Express 1 and say Fedex has no loads for me to run, do you have any loads I can run. If Fedex can not find you a load you set, that is a dependent contractor.
C.o.l.a
- Thread starter scotthos69
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nightcreacher
Veteran Expediter
If FECC cant find me a load I sit,well that statement isnt true,If I wish,I can get a load running under their flag,but why would I want to,when I know the load i will get from FECC will pay much higher than most of the load opportunities that are on the load boards.If I spend some time and put together LTL freight i can raise the bar,but by the time I get enough loads to satisfy my hunger,the FED will have me loaded,AS long as i can make my own decision what I haul,I'm independent,if they say you must do this or that,then thats when I become dependent to them and i become a company driver.Im sitting in L.A. been here 48 hours and have turned down about 5 loads,not for what they paid,but where they were going.They all paid very well.in the $2.50 per mile range,I just know I will get a load going where I want,besides the weather is great and there is no urgency to leave here.Yes I am an idependent,and i have a partner in my business,its FedEx Custom Critical.
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greg334
Veteran Expediter
No not at all. I hope this clarifies something; growing into the position can and does happen often while jumping into it lessens the chances of meeting those goals.
read on... I am getting interrupted a lot as I type.....
What it comes down to it, the statement that has been made more than once that this business is easy to learn. I think it is not, I stand by that. If you are driving for someone and that fits your needs and goals, great ….but it is part of larger picture. Many don’t think it is.
Sure some are very good to produce revenue, some grasp what the company quirks are and how to handle the things that are about that company but some don’t. It is the some that don’t I also want to see succeed, meet their goals.
When I talk about the other 2/3rd of the rest of what needs to be learned, it is a good thing to learn what an owner goes through, it will allow you to grow even faster.
Yes I think there definitely is, there is an added responsibility that actually changes some of the way you think and judge things. It is now your truck, it is now your responsibility and it is now you liability to pay that loan every month.
What I said before in another thread where my questions go unanswered, when someone says it is easy, it really is not for a lot of people. It gives false impression that someone can get into this and make money. The other problem I see is even through many drive for someone, they don’t look around or take the time to understand ownership but expect that their accumulated knowledge will be sufficient to own a truck (which in a away is repeating what I said in the third paragraph). You seem to be the exception to all that, you seem to want to know.
A lot of people who have been doing the trucking thing for say 15, 20 or even 40 years don’t get this is not the same economy that it was even 5 years ago and it is for the most part following another industry step by step into the future. Many of the people who have been jumping on me are the ones who owned tractors, who came from that pre-2000 lifestyle, who for the most part grew up with this stuff and are only thinking that there is one way to see things, well that is all good and well but reality is they forget one important thing; many of the people who are in this part of a larger industry never ever been around a truck let alone owned one in better times and come from a diverse background.
I came from that industry I mentioned; I see things here that we had to put up with in that other industry which eventually ended up gutting and changing it forever. Maybe I come across to some vets of this industry as a know it all but hell, I think they need to actually expand their knowledge of the world and get out of the truck for a few years to try something that is highly competitive to see where I am coming from.
Ok, independent businessman is not what I am talking about, applying a knowledge on how to be competitive is. The employee mentality is what I am talking about, not a worker mentality. You don’t learn how to be competitive working for a company; many don’t even realize that you are competitive with the people in the same fleet or how to leverage it to their advantage.
To me you can learn how to handle the finance end of things, many do who can barely add but when I talk about the employee mentality coupled with the business I am talking about learning the company way of things, (FedEx for me) and being able to look beyond that. I am struggling to shed this attitude that I am limited to x, I can do a lot more of x – x being the loads. I am learning what goes on behind all that façade of FedEx, meaning the sales, meaning the brokerage, meaning how to actually get more work outside. For me it is not hard to learn, I have to balance a lot more than most – one reason I am sitting at home is because I had three deaths this week to deal with and a father who decided to go skating and broke his ankle. I don’t have help here at home, I have to come home and do a lot of things to get back out on the road. I hope others don’t.
I feel FedEx is a great company but there are two problems, one is a lack of sales staff being aggressive which stems from the company’s thought on how CC fits into the company and the second is that you can not go outside of the system to even get moved or pick up some extra money. I think Panther has a leg up on FedEx allowing contractors to go outside the system but they are micromanaging things.
Well you can bore me all you want, if someone can take that info and let them think and learn, that is what it is all about – it is not about my opinion, it is about helping people.
I thought it was funny, that’s all….. directing things to me in a thread that is talking about cost of living increases and wages.
nightcreacher
Veteran Expediter
Greg,i agree with you to a point.If I go to work for someone,drive their truck,but keep records as if it were my truck,all the costs involved,I can determin if owning that truck is what i really want.I can compare my drivers wage to my profit margin,and if my drivers wage reflects that i make more money not owning the truck,then I would want just to drive for someone else,but here is a big but.Tax shelter,ive gone into this before.That truck ownership,is the truck drivers tax shelter.For instance,if i make 60k drivers wage,after taxes thats about $40000,but if that truck i drive shows a loss,doesnt mean its loosing money,key word here is shows a loss,then my drivers pay wont be taxed as 60 k any more,might not be taxed at all.My depreciation and interest on my note is more than my truck payment so right there im making out just owning the truck.Your not going to get around your self employment tax,but you will lower your income tax being an owmer opperator.